Saturday, May 21, 2005

Apparently, You Can't Filibuster Incompetence. This Washington Post piece by Washington Monthly blogger Kevin Drum from last January is one of the few anywhere that actually examines the background of the filibuster fight, detailing the list of rules that the Republicans used heavily to block Clinton nominations but then quickly invalidated -- barring their use by Democrats -- when Bush came to office. There are plenty of ways, in the past, that even a single Republican Senator could derail a judicial nomination indefinitely. No up-and-down votes were required. Nominees could be blocked without a hearing, in fact. Originally, after Republicans gained control of the Senate in the 1994 elections and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch assumed control of the Judiciary Committee, the rule regarding judicial nominees was this: If a single senator from a nominee's home state objected to (or "blue-slipped") a nomination, it was dead. This rule made it easy for Republicans to obstruct Clinton's nominees. But in 2001, when a Republican became president, Hatch suddenly reversed course and decided that it should take objections from both home-state senators to block a nominee. That made it harder for Democrats to obstruct George W. Bush's nominees. In early 2003 Hatch went even further: Senatorial objections were merely advisory, he said. Even if both senators objected to a nomination, it could still go to the floor for a vote. Finally, a few weeks later, yet another barrier was torn down: Hatch did away with "Rule IV," which states that at least one member of the minority has to agree in order to end discussion about a nomination and move it out of committee. Those are good, solid facts. No finely-tuned talking-point based quotes needed, no he-said-she-said reporting. Those were the rules for Clinton nominations, and the Republicans used them to block over sixty nominees. Once Bush came to office, Hatch had a visionary (and remarkably predictable) change of heart and began reversing each rule, one after the other, for Bush nominees as the need arose. What a hero, that Orrin Hatch is! What a pillar of leadership! What a model of American democracy! Surely, his legacy will be remembered forever beside Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, and the guy who invented reverse-interest mortgages! Ahem. Now, aside from reminding the world what a colossal, hypocritical jackass the good Senator Orrin Hatch is, in his recent wailings and protestations (hey, I call 'em like I see 'em -- I'm a whale biologist*), I just have to ask... [Daily Kos] 7:42:50 PM     Yuan Revaluation May Hurt More Than Help. Washington has been making public noises about China’s need to revalue the Yuan. The reason for the increase in bellicose rhetoric from Washington is the 500% increase in Chinese textile imports since the beginning of the year when the final barriers to US importation were lifted. However, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that a revaluation won’t solve the problem of Chinese imports or dramatically alter the US’ trade imbalance with China. [BOPnews] 7:41:51 PM     The Breakdown. From the CAFTA article mentioned below, I love this closing paragraph on the high tech industry's donations: The result, in recent years, has been near parity in campaign contributions, splitting 54 to 45 percent in the Democrats' favor in...  [Ezra Klein] 7:40:56 PM     Keeping Head Start Bigotry Free. Guest Post by Morbo I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Head Start, probably because I'm an alumnus of the program. I was probably one of the first kids in America to go through Head Start in the late 1960s. To be honest, I don't remember much about it, but I've always admired the [...] [The Carpetbagger Report] 10:26:29 AM     Creationism and the Daubert test? As long as the creationists are relying on legal strategies to shoehorn bad science into our classrooms, Red State Rabble brings up an interesting point: the Daubert Test of Reliability. Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence states, in part: A. Witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form of an opinion or otherwise, if: the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case. The factors the court considers when applying this test are whether the theory or technique has been tested or can be tested; whether the theory or technique has been subjected to peer review and publication; whether there is a known or potential rate of error, and; whether the theory or methodology has been generally accepted within the scientific community. Since the Intelligent Design creationism crows has no data, no methods, and therefore nothing that can be applied to the study of biology, it seems to me that it is a no-brainer to disqualify them. Of course, I am not a lawyer, and it makes my brain hurt to read legal arguments. I tried parsing this description of the Frye and Daubert tests, but it didn't help me much, and just confused me on a few things. That polygraph tests meet the Daubert standard doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. - PZ Myers (pzmyers@pharyngula.org) [Pharyngula] 10:25:14 AM     Dear Angry Bear, Time for another installment in an irregular series. I thought this email said a lot about the media's truly poor job in covering the privatization debate: In regards to Bush's privorization plan for Social Security, I caught the tail end of a speech that a U.S. Senator was giving in Congress. He stated that contrary to the popular perception, the portion of the Social Security that would be diverted into private accounts would be considered a loan from the Social Security Administration which would have to be paid back with a 6 percent interest. Do you know anything about this? Here we have a citizen who actually listens to speeches by senators, which probably puts him in the top 10% of the population in terms of being attuned to political goings-on (Certainly, I rarely listen to speeches by senators). And yet if he hadn't been listening to speeches by senators, he still would not know about the clawback! How could this happen? Curious, I searched a few papers for "bush & social & security & privatization" First up, the NYT's most recent story on the Bush's social security plan: Bush Committed to Private Accounts Plan -- you guessed it, no mention of the clawback or anything like it. Next up, the Washington Post, where I learn that, "washingtonpost.com is undergoing maintenance and some sections of the site are temporarily unavailable." That's okay. I have a pretty good guess of what I would find, and would not find, were the site working. Over to the West Coast, where the top hit is noted liberal Michael Kinsley's 5/1/05 paean to Bush, "Bush Gets B+ for Honesty, Even Courage, on Social Security." I pretty much knew from the title that there was no description of the clawback, but I read it again anyway, just to make sure. No mention. Now to the heartland. The Chicago Tribune's latest is actually an interesting article, reprinted from The Nation and titled "How Bush Makes Sure They Agree," on how the Bush team screens and selects those who get to attend his taxpayer-funded privatization advocacy trips. Yet still no description of the clawback! Let's try the WSJ. Their latest is an article (behind a paywall) pointing out that even Bob Pozen, author of the plan Bush recently cited as a model for privatization, does not support Bush's privatization plan! But no clawback mention or explanation. Finally, on to that font of knowledge, USA Today. The top hit there is "Bush: Rein in Social Security." Yet again, no clawback. In each instance, I was not simply looking for the word "clawback." Instead, I was looking for either the word "clawback," or some description of the fact that accounts would have to earn at least 3% + inflation, probably more for 70% of workers, before workers would be better off under Bush's latest semi-plan (it's not really a plan since Bush still has not laid out any real details). Searching to no avail. In any case, here's my very lightly edited response to my reader: Yes, that's always been the plan -- search, e.g., Google for "social security" + "clawback", with "clawback" being the fairly accurate term for the repayment of the loan. Under most plans I've seen, you are basically loaned money at about 3% and have to implicitly pay it back. Your account has to grow at a rate greater than (3% + inflation) before you would be close to better off under Bush's apparent plan. I say "apparent" because he still has not really detailed a plan. For more on the clawback issue, see this from the Center for American Progress. AB - Angry Bear [Angry Bear] 10:23:57 AM     Filibusted . Josh Marshall: For all the constitutional mischief they're in the midst of making, we should probably thank the 50+ senate Republicans for giving us an extended moment to see so clearly just who they really are. Remember that this entire political uproar is supposedly about originalism, the need for judges who will interpret the law and the constitution not according to our personal wishes or the political needs of the moment, but according to its original and long-settled meaning. That is, we're told, their aim. And yet to accomplish this they are quite happy to use a demonstrably bogus interpretation of the constitution to overturn two centuries of settled understanding of what the document means and requires. Before everyone's eyes, everything about the constitution is subservient to their need for power. Current polling says that people are overwhelmingly opposed the idea that Congress should rubber-stamp a president's nominees, and they support the idea of keeping the filibuster in order to put the brakes on radical nominations or policies. More specifically, a large majority of Americans want Democrats to restrict the Republicans and George W. Bush in their efforts to ram through radical nominees and policies. Not too many people seem to be falling for Republican talking points on this issue. At Faithful Progressive, we learn that one Senator has come up with a not unpredictable name for one of those talking points: During this week's debate on judicial nominations, Sen. Patrick Leahy aptly described Sen. Bill Frist's unsavory efforts to relate the rejection of a small number of Bush nominees to hostility to "people of faith." "This kind of religious McCarthyism is fraudulent on its face," Sen. Leahy declared. "It's contemptible. Contemptible." One can almost hear Sen. Frist re-formulating that infamous question: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of a liberal Methodist choir?" And there's no point in asking if, at long last, they have any shame. We already know they don't.  [The Sideshow] 10:22:25 AM     Galloway... Frankly, the oil for food "scandal" is shabby political theater. It's pretty funny that it took a Brit, Galloway, to demonstrate how entertaining political theater can be if the participants actually had skill... BTW, I would vote for this guy... [John Robb's Weblog] 5:27:09 AM     Thieves like us. Chalabi gets a pardon: King Abdullah of Jordan has agreed to pardon Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial Iraqi political leader, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for fraud after his bank collapsed with $300m (£160m) in missing deposits in...  [Body and Soul] 4:56:01 AM     Friday Night Feel-Good Story. Two young Los Angeles real estate guys, George Pino and Joe Killinger, have come up with a successful and possibly unique concept for matching the profit motive to community betterment. They are the owners of an apartment management company, descriptively named Learning Links, which recently bought a down-at-heels complex in one of L.A.'s low-income minority neighborhoods. After renovating the whole, they took two one-bedroom units off the market. One they turned into a "resource center" where the youngsters in the complex can study, practice computer skills and receive tutoring in what looks to be a bright, warm environment. The other they rent to a teacher who pays a reduced rate in exchange for working with the kids. In fact, attracting teachers to live in the complex is critical to the master plan. [BOPnews] 4:53:29 AM     Detainees' stories. As you probably already know, the Washington Post noted yesterday that detainees' stories about desecration of the Koran have been widely reported for years (and the WaPo wasn't alone in trying to keep it real.) Human Rights First has more...  [Body and Soul] 4:52:56 AM     The death of Dilawar. A little ironic that we're warning the Iraqis to treat detainees better, no? Most of what's in today's widely discussed New York Times article on the deaths of two Afghan prisoners at Bagram is old news. More than two years...  [Body and Soul] 4:52:23 AM     Tommy, can you hear me?. Talk about bad timing. Today's New York Times fronts a story of brutality visited upon innocent men in the American gulag, and on the same day Tom Friedman tells us we must have the courage to tell Muslims the "truth"...  [Body and Soul] 4:51:40 AM

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