"The best kind of patriotism I can imagine"
I ran across "Metroblogging Washington" again while assembling a directory of local mailing lists for nefarious purposes. To my surprise, it features Mike Krempasky, founder of the "Red State" community blog -- I'd always figured he was based somewhere 300 miles northwest of Omaha, Nebraska, roping steers and shucking corn or something. But no, he's right here in the decadent DC metro area, on a blog with cheesecake Goth "Suicide Girls" ads and everything; at least he's gainfully employed with pig lipstick leader Edelman.

Anyway, that's how I came across his July 4th story, "Patriotism isn't complicated," about Ronald Reagan's waning years suffering from Alzheimers:

As Reagan would sit with Nancy through the day, he would often nod off for a few minutes. One day, after being asleep in a chair for about 10 minutes, he woke with a start - a bit disoriented and confused. He looked at Nancy next to him and didn't say, 'hello' or anything of the sort. He simply smiled wide and said, 'I love America.'

And in the throes of a disease that steals memory, reason, political agendas - when all that was stripped away, the most important thing the President was left with was a deep and abiding - inherently optimistic and positive love for his country. And that is the best kind of patriotism I can imagine.

Hokaaay. Nothing on Reagan here -- poor guy. But Krempasky! I guess vestigial "patriotism" after a prefrontal lobotomy or a massive head injury would be even purer and more touching -- then you'd really have the autonomic reflex an sich, none of that thinking stuff messing it up.

It's rare to have your suspicions about a degenerative political condition so completely confirmed. And I don't mean Reagan, or patriotism -- I mean whatever it is Krempasky's got. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:16:00 AM -- |  

 
Maryland early voting
The Maryland Democratic Party would like you to know:

You can vote in person beginning 5 days before Election Day at an Early Vote site in your jurisdiction (23 Counties & Baltimore City). These early vote sites are just like your normal polling places and have been set up for your convenience. A full list of Early Voting polling locations is provided below. You may only vote at one of the Early Voting locations in the jurisdiction in which you are registered to vote.

Early voting is ideal for busy people who may not be able to get to the polls during normal Election Day hours, or for people who want to avoid lines and be sure they cast their vote—early voting is even available on the Saturday before Election Day.

For the 2006 elections, the polls will open for early voting at 7:00AM and close at 8:00PM on the following dates:

Primary Election: Tuesday, September 5th – Saturday, September 9th
General Election: Tuesday, October 31st – Saturday, November 4th

Montgomery County locations include:

1) Germantown Community Center
18905 Kingsview Road
Germantown, MD 20874

2) Bauer Drive Community Center
14625 Bauer Drive
Rockville, MD 20853

3) Gwendolyn E. Coffield Community Center
2450 Lyttonsville Road
Silver Spring, MD 20910

If you're from elsewhere in Maryland, go to the MD Democratic site to find your early voting location. Also, don't forget to register to vote; go to theMaryland State Board of Elections voter registration web site and get the forms you need, whether you're a soldier, overseas, recently moved, or otherwise.


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UPDATE, 8/14: As mentioned here in an update, early voting has been struck down by a Maryland judge as unconstitutional under the Maryland constitution. The case is being appealed, but the text above will remain grayed out unless the ruling is overturned. posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:33:00 PM -- |  

 
Not throwing flowers or candy
Hundreds thousand Iraqi Shiites demonstrate for Lebanon (Agence France Press, via Yahoo! News):

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites thronged the streets of Baghdad chanting 'Death to Israel' and 'Resistance' in a massive and noisy demonstration of support for Lebanon's Hezbollah militia. [...]

The march was the largest foreign show of support for the Lebanese Shiite guerrillas in the three weeks since Israel launched a devastating ground and air offensive against them. [...]

The Shiite demonstrators wore white shrouds to demonstrate their willingness to accept martyrdom, marched over US and Israeli flags and waved hundreds of yellow Hezbollah flags in support of the militia's war against Israel.

Portraits of the Lebanese Shiite group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, were carried aloft through a massive crowd which packed a kilometre-long street in the teeming Sadr City district of the Iraqi capital.

"This million-man demonstration is to support the resistance in Lebanon," cleric Hazem al-Aariji told worshippers at Friday prayers before the march.

See also the New York Times' Damien Cave and Kirk Semple:

The protesters filled 20 blocks of a wide boulevard and dozens of side streets in the Shiite-dominated Sadr City section of the capital.

The photo of the crowd is equally sobering -- as is the thought that there are doubtless more where they came from.

This could be worse than "just" bad news for long term U.S. foreign policy in Iraq and the Middle East. I'm no military expert, but if the plight of Iraqis doesn't concern us, we might still consider getting out of Dodge for the well-being of our own troops. Imperial overreach -- and that's all you can call a policy aiming at permanent bases in hostile territory and little else -- can end very badly indeed; the classic example is what happened to Athens at Syracuse. Indeed, there was a glimpse of what springing "Iraq The Trap" might look like yesterday:

Tensions were raised before the rally by claims from Sadr's movement that US soldiers had fired on a convoy of protesters as it travelled north to Baghdad through the town of Mahmudiyah on Thursday, wounding 16 of them.

But the US military said the soldiers had responded only after one of their watchtowers had come under fire from a passing van and that they had killed two "terrorists" in the subsequent exchange.

I imagine American troops could fight their way out of Iraq if it came to that. Or they could crush mass demonstrations heading towards the Green Zone or Baghdad airport. But it would come at at hideous cost. Is that what we want? How long before that happens? Even two months ago, I'd have thought "never." Now I'm not so sure. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:41:00 PM -- |  

 
Crawford reading material: Darfur ad

Dear President Bush,

The situation in Darfur is dire. The government-sponsored genocide has killed hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, displaced millions of innocent civilians from their homes and put many more individuals at risk. And the growing danger recently forced key humanitarian organizations to halt operations in large parts of Darfur.

Your efforts to help broker the Darfur Peace Agreement deserve praise. But the genocide continues and we must act now -- with conviction -- to ensure more innocent lives are not lost.

That is why we, the undersigned, call on you to:

1. Push for the urgent deployment of a strong UN peacekeeping force to protect civilians.
2. Appoint a Presidential Special Envoy to coordinate U.S. policy and help ensure that the Darfur Peace Agreement is faithfully implemented.

Sincerely,
Your signature here

SAVE DARFUR NOW
www.savedarfur.org

The above message (minus the added links) will be run as a full page ad in the Waco Tribune-Herald during President Bush's upcoming vacation in Crawford, Texas. To add your signature, contribute $50 or more before 9pm tonight. The contribution helps pay for the ad and supports the SAVE DARFUR NOW organization.



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NOTES: "The situation in Darfur" -- Save Darfur Now "Current situation"; "halt operations" -- AllAfrica.com, 8/3/06, "Sudan: Deaths of Aid Workers Threaten Darfur Operations", reporting that Medecins sans frontieres has pulled out. And this: "During the second half of July, we lost more aid workers than over the previous two years," said Mike McDonagh, senior humanitarian affairs officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Khartoum. "Darfur Peace Agreement" -- State Department synopsis; the full text of the agreement can be found online here (South Africa's Institute for Security Studies) and elsewhere; "genocide continues" -- Refugees International article, 7/18/06, "Sudan: Despite the Darfur Peace Agreement, Death and Displacement in South Darfur." posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:15:00 PM -- |  

 
Department of followups
Organ harvesting in China: postscript and followup, 7/19/2006; The perfect crime against humanity?, 7/16/2006 --- Respected South China Morning Post (SCMP) reporter Mark O'Neill picks up the Falun Gong organ transplant charge (his piece begins at 5:55 minutes into the podcast), and finds the Kilgour-Matas report "lends extra weight" to the allegations, as an SCMP anchor puts it. O'Neill's print article is quoted on a China studies listserv:

The report, mainly based on testimony provided by Falun Gong practitioners outside China, concludes that the government and its hospitals, detention centres and courts have since 1999 put to death a large but unknown number of Falun Gong members, removing their hearts, kidneys, livers, corneas and other vital organs for sale at high prices to local and foreign patients. [...]

Three pieces of evidence are the most persuasive. One is official statistics that show a sharp rise in organ transplants since 2000. From 1994 to 1999, there were 18,500, and, from 2000 to last year, 60,000. A tripling of these operations does not prove the allegations, but the harvesting of Falun Gong organs would provide an explanation.

The second is the transcript of an interview by Mr Kilgour in the US with the ex-wife of a surgeon who said that, between the end of 2001 and October 2003, her husband removed corneas from 2,000 Falun Gong patients. [...]

The third piece of evidence pointing to the possibility of the harvesting is material from websites offering organ transplants.

Makin' an honest living, 6/8/2005--- Last year the Justice Department suddenly reduced damages it was seeking in a high profile lawsuit against the tobacco industry from $130 billion to -- ahem -- $10 billion. On July 20, Justice Department political appointee Robert McCallum was deposed about the incident after a June ruling compelling McCallum to do so. Former Justice Department official Sharon Banks -- now working for the winner of that ruling, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) -- charges McCallum misled Congress:

Eubanks said McCallum mischaracterized a court order in his statements to Capitol Hill, making it appear that U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler criticized the government's embrace of smoking cessation as a remedy in the lawsuit. McCallum cited the judge's order in explaining why he reduced the government's request.

Eubanks pointed out that the judge later rejected the tobacco industry's arguments and allowed Eubanks' expert witness to testify that the companies should pay $130 billion for smoking cessation.

McCallum claims an appeals court ruling requiring "forward looking" damages dealt a "body blow" to the Justice Department's case. The DOJ's Office of Professional Conduct says McCallum was not influenced by political motivations.

Race to save the Lord God Bird, 5/09/2005 -- The Chicago Tribune's Annie Bergman reports ("Birders find no new confirmation of rare woodpecker in Arkansas," 5/18/2006):

Search teams exploring an Arkansas swamp for better evidence of the ivory-billed woodpecker said Thursday they had no new confirmation of the bird's existence, and wildlife managers said there was no longer a reason to limit public access to the region.

"Certainly we're somewhat disappointed," said Ron Rohrbaugh of the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y. "We've had enough of these tantalizing sounds and we still have a lot of hope that there might be a pair, especially in the White River area."

Srebrenica, 11 years on, 7/11/2006 --- Accused Serbian war criminal Ratko Mladic is still at large. But Serbia's bid to join the EU is stalled until Mladic is arrested, and Serbian officials are scrambling to come up with an approach to do so. Even Hague prosecutor Carla Del Ponte seems to think this time it's for real:

Facing pariah status, Serbia presented EU officials with an "action plan" for Mladic's arrest earlier this month, hoping that a serious show of effort would placate del Ponte and persuade the EU to restart talks.

"Since the action plan was adopted, I think the political will to arrest Mladic exists for the first time," del Ponte said. "I would like to see the operational plan and be involved." [...]

The plan has not been made public but it is said to include a media campaign to convince Serbs that it is necessary to arrest Mladic, who is accused of orchestrating the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims. A government survey published on Thursday showed 51 percent of those polled opposed Mladic's extradition, 34 percent supported it and 15 percent were undecided.

To me, this seems more like a way to look like you care about catching Mladic than a way to actually catch Mladic. But what do I know.



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NOTES: Follow title links to earlier posts on this blog backgrounding the followups above. The McCallum items are from the AP and the Washington Post's Pete Yost, respectively. The Mladic item is via a Reuters 7/29 article.
EDIT, 8/27: Listserv name deleted by request.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:01:00 PM -- |  

 
Why, thank you, Congressman Boehner!
Josh Marshall has been noticing more and more tough Republican talk resurfacing about Social Security "reform." His latest report from that front:

Majority Leader Boehner pledges that if Republicans retain control of Congress 'we’re going to get serious about' phasing out Social Security.

Assuming some Democrats with brains start to work on this -- always a dangerous assumption* -- you might have the makings of an '06 "Social Security" Dem landslide. Including Red states. How did publius ("Legal Fiction") put it in 2005? Oh, here it is:

“Mrs. Candidate, do you support [wedge issue].” Response - “I don’t give a rat’s behind about [wedge issue] ... What I care about is Social Security. I’m a Social Security Democrat.” Removing one-third of funding. Massive benefit cuts. Massive borrowing. Say it with me everybody. Funding. Cuts. Borrowing. My. Opponent. Supports. Decreased funding. Massive cuts. Massive Borrowing. Over and over and over and over and over. Funding - Cuts - Borrowing.

I've paraphrased publius' examples as "wedge issue" because some seemed to sell out people I'm not willing to sell out, even hypothetically. But the point remains: keep that magnifying glass focused and -- zzzzzt, crackle -- the Republican majority in the House goes up in smoke.


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* UPDATE, EDIT, 8/1: Senate Democrat "Social Security Question Of The Day" link added -- even though it hasn't changed since May 20, 2005. On the other hand, congressional Democrats are finally getting it together about a unified stance on Iraq, and the "New Direction" blueprint does list Social Security as a priority concern. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:04:00 AM -- |  

 
Maybe they should start a band
Condi on piano, Tony Snow on flute, Bush picking up singing tips from American Idol finalists -- and always rockin' out on guitar, of course.

Must have nothing better to do -- senioritis, maybe. But summer vacation is coming up soon; maybe they can practice in Crawford the next couple of months, and then start off with a Mideast tour: Beirut, Baghdad, you name it.

The Embarrassments?

How could it be any worse than Bush's remarks to the press when he was with Blair on Friday?

Tomorrow, Secretary Rice will return to the region. She will work with the leaders of Israel and Lebanon to seize this opportunity to achieve lasting peace and stability for both of their countries. [...]

This is a moment of intense conflict in the Middle East. Yet our aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for a broader change in the region... The United States is committed to using all of its influence to seize this moment to build a stable and democratic Middle East. [...]

And so for the sake of long-term stability, we've got to deal with this issue now. Listen, the temptation is to say, it's too tough, let's just try to solve it quickly with something that won't last; let's just get it off the TV screens. But that won't solve the problem. And it's certainly not going to help the Lebanese citizens have a life that is normal and peaceful.

In the Washington Post -- "Crisis could undercut Bush's Long Term Goals" (ya think? wait, that depends what they are) -- one former loyalista reacts:

Haass, the former Bush aide who leads the Council on Foreign Relations, laughed at the president's public optimism. "An opportunity?" Haass said with an incredulous tone. "Lord, spare me. I don't laugh a lot. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what's Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?"

Via DemFromCT ("The Next Hurrah"). The wishful thinking, self-congratulatory posing, and tough talk can't hide that this is a bankrupt strategy built on one size fits all analysis: Hezbollah is fighting Israel, so Hezbollah are terrorists, so there's nothing else to say. Hezbollah was wrong to attack the Israeli soldiers, but Israel would have lost nothing by continuing its own strategy of taking nonessential issues off the table by exchanging them for the Hezbollah prisoners it has. Or Israel could have bombed Hezbollah targets that were purely military, absorbed some rocket fire -- and looked like grownups facing firebrands, which is what I thought the confrontation was. Instead, Israel has turned this into a tragic fiasco.

Why we rushed bombs to Tel Aviv to help them out with that isn't clear to me. I think it's not all that clear to anyone in the Bush administration either, anymore. The top guy thinks we're helping Lebanese democracy out with this somehow, and the handful of people who might tell him anything else are gone and never counted for much anyway.


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UPDATE, 8/2: Matthew Yglesias ("It's the stupidity, stupid") identifies more choice Bush thinking, e.g.: "We discussed a lot of issues. The Prime Minister has laid out a comprehensive plan. That's what leaders do. They see problems, they address problems, and they lay out a plan to solve the problems. The Prime Minister understands he's got challenges and he's identified priorities." I feel a little like Group Captain Mandrake when I read stuff like that; our fate is in the hands of an imbecile. As Yglesias concludes: "The real problem is that the risk of a wider regional war involving the United States remains. And if that risk becomes a reality, our country will be led into it by a president who doesn't seem to grasp what's happening."
posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:50:00 PM -- |  

 
RILA v. Fielder, ERISA, and Fair Share Health Care
On July 22, the Brennan Center for Justice released a memorandum explaining that RILA v. Fielder -- the ruling overturning Maryland's famous 2005-2006 "Fair Share Health Care" law -- did not pose any obstacles for "big box living wage" legislation such as adopted by the Chicago City Council.*

This is very welcome news and analysis. The Chicago ordinance is a great example of a feasible, incremental approach to mitigating the burden on state health care systems posed by stingy employers like Wal-Mart, and it's one that I hope Maryland legislators will study closely. Still, I found this introductory sentence irksome:

The trial court found that the Maryland law was preempted by ERISA because it effectively forced covered employers to modify their health benefits offerings in order to comply with the law.

No, Fair Share Health Care did not force or even "effectively" force employers to do any such thing. It may well have encouraged that, but it did not require it. Under Fair Share Health Care, large Maryland employers had (or will have, if the RILA v. Fielder ruling is overturned), the perfect and attractive right to pay the shortfall between their actual health benefits and 8% of payroll into a state Medicaid fund, instead of increasing health benefits.

That's what's called a choice, not a requirement; Wal-Mart could have kept its (pathetic) national health benefits package untouched, and spent 20 seconds cutting a check to the state Medicaid fund -- advantage: simplicity, and whatever pleasure there is to be had in having a "significant percentage of associates and their children on public assistance,” to quote Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's Executive Vice President for Benefits.** Or it could have increased health benefits, either nationally or within Maryland -- advantage: attracting/keeping workers.

Now I'm trying to plow through ERISA to see if I can figure out that legislation. So far, at least, I see nothing in it preventing states from providing incentives to companies to improve their health plans. If it does, it's a stupid law. If it doesn't, Judge Motz is a stupid judge.


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* Via eRobin.
** As State Senator Ida Ruben quite rightly points out. In particular, Ms. Chambers revealed that fully 27% of Wal-Mart associate children were on Medicaid. By arithmetic, another 19% were altogether uninsured.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 8:04:00 PM -- |  

 
God's way of just, like, revealing the truth about Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson anti-semitic? Nawwwww..... I mean, how could Michael Medved be that wrong? At the "TMZ" article breaking the story, there's a thing where you can listen online to caller comments. Bless you, caller 6:

"... I just believe this is God's way of just, like, showing that... revealing the truth about Mel Gibson..."

Well, kinda, yeah. Almost makes me want to go to church in the morning -- or temple next weekend, come to think of it, I'll have to work out what the deeper message is here. What did "Passion" gross again?


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ANSWER, 8/3: $370,614,210 in the US theaters alone, through 3/27/05; another $203,651,032 in rentals, lots overseas. Thanks, Gary!
UPDATE, 8/14: Good one.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:11:00 AM -- |