Office of the Independent Blogger

Today’s news concerns Barack Obama’s now-probable run for the Presidency. Here are my thoughts: Obama is a black man, a Democrat, an admitted former cocaine user, a Senator, and an undistinguished one at that. He has major ethical problems stemming from his connections to a crooked neighbor. If he runs for President, he will be destroyed. If he isn’t by the Democrats in the primary, he’ll be destroyed by the Republicans for sure. A black man can not win the Presidency in today’s America — a black man that admitted to using cocaine, has little executive experience and looks funny, has even less of a chance.

Barack’s incapable of winning, by my calculation, every southern state; I believe he is incapable of winning Pennsylvania (the MUST for any Democrat), New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa and Missouri. I’m not sure how he’d fare in New Mexico, but I don’t believe it’d work out. If he wins the nomination, the Democratic Party is going to have some serious problems, from issues with the Latin Wing of the Democratic Party to issues with the black wing (Jesse Jackson + Sharpton + others dislike Obama for being part-white — though they never say it like that), to problems with certain parts of the country for having dared run a black.

He isn’t clean enough to win, nor is he accomplished enough to. I’d be amazed if he wins the nomination, but that’s why they have the elections, isn’t it?

I’m not going to update this blog obsessively with news from the Libby trial, but I will update when it’s important enough to warrant it. That certainly includes the end of the trial, Cheney’s scheduled testimony and any surprise witnesses. I have heard that the Bush Administration picked up Lionel Hutt to be Scooter Libby’s Secret Attorney. It’s like a Secret Santa, but he brings you surprise witnesses instead of coal.

Reason I bring this all up is because today was Jury Selection Day, and a few of the lucky contestants on Who Wants to Try a Millionaire? were booted out of the courtroom for saying that they despise the Bush Administration. Today is the exception, but I want to make it clear that I will not post to say, “People dismissed from jury in trial. Exciting stuff!”

Sorry to disappoint you all. Let us re-direct our disappointment to The Disappointment and The News.

The White House on Tuesday denied it was planning a U-turn on its climate change policy by embracing a system of formal caps on greenhouse emissions, despite rising pressure from European governments to change its stance. Although energy security will be a key theme in President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address next week, the White House issued an unusually public rebuttal of rumours about its climate change policy. Tony Snow, White House spokesman, said: “I want to walk you back from the whole carbon cap story…The carbon cap stuff is not accurate. It’s wrong.”

International pressure for Mr Bush to consider reducing US emissions via a form of “cap and trade” system like that in force in the European Union has intensified. The issue has been raised in the last two weeks by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president. Tony Blair, the British premier, has also been persistent in lobbying the president. The Bush administration has consistently stressed technological solutions, rather than formal treaties such as the Kyoto accord. Mr Snow said: “What the president has talked about all along is the importance of innovation,” adding there was a need to focus on change “consistent with economic growth”.

After meeting Ms Merkel, Mr Bush said he would focus on “technological developments that will enable us to be good stewards of the environment, and enable us to become less dependent on oil and hydrocarbons from parts of the world that may not like us”. The president is also under pressure at home. Last Friday six US senators – including two presidential hopefuls for 2008, the Republican John McCain and the Democrat Barack Obama – presented a cap and trade proposal to force industries, such as electricity utilities, to cut by 2050 greenhouse gas emissions to one third of the levels of 2000.

I thought it was too good to be true. Though the fact that the President is denying it might very well be proof of truth.

Do you remember in September when I happened to dismember my left leg….er? I was officially medically cleared today to do whatever I want (not that I wasn’t doing just that already). After shaking hands goodbye, I requested copies of my MRI and X-Rays on a disc. If you’re interested, you can see the screens here. I think they’re beautiful, and no, that’s not because they’re stills of my inner leg (so hot). It’s because they’re beautiful and captivating graphics by shape and color.

A more serious but less sexy story broke today, and it’s one that I’d like to devote diligence and wit to: Al Gore won’t run for President: oh noes!

Really, I’m disappointed, but I understand, and am glad that he’s still fighting in some capacity.

Now, remember the Somali-Ethiopian War? Somalia’s Islamist government has fallen, and the World is calling for international peacekeepers (the US is calling for African peacekeepers). It’s a sad story. The World will fail to keep the peace, that country will still be torn apart by wars, factions and terrorists, and nobody will care.

I wonder if the President knows about this. Not this President, specifically, but I mean, any President. I’m sure it was in one of Bush’s Intelligence Briefs, but the article says that the US called for “the rapid deployment of an 8,000 member African peacekeeping mission” and I wonder if Bush personally signed off on that, and then I realize, No, of course he didn’t. Bush doesn’t do that type of thing. But how many Presidents do? And would the world be better off if they did pay more attention to everything?

The Sunday Times (online!) is running an article today about the chilly reception given Barack Obama by black activists such as Jesse Jackson. Is it any surprise that Jesse Jackson wouldn’t like him? He’s half-white, and has a chance to win (by media consensus), which would turn Jesse Jackson into a historical footnote rather than a political pioneer. Same with Al Sharpton, who says that we must be careful with Obama because we “don’t know what he’s all about.”

Translation: he isn’t black enough. I love Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Also from across the pond comes this news.

George Bush is preparing to make a historic shift in his position on global warming when he makes his State of the Union speech later this month, say senior Downing Street officials.
Tony Blair hopes that the new stance by the United States will lead to a breakthrough in international talks on climate change and that the outlines of a successor treaty to the Kyoto agreement, the deal to curb emissions of greenhouse gases which expires in 2012, could now be thrashed out at the G8 summit in June.

The timetable may explain why Blair is so keen to remain in office until after the summit, with a deal on protecting the planet offering an appealing legacy with which to bow out of Number 10. Bush and Blair held private talks on climate change before Christmas, and there is a feeling that the US President will now agree a cap on emissions in the US, meaning that, for the first time, American industry and consumers would be expected to start conserving energy and curbing pollution. ‘We could now be seeing the beginning of a consensus on a post-Kyoto framework,’ said a source close to the prime minister. ‘President Bush is beginning to talk about more radical measures.’

The move will be seen as part of a wider repositioning of the Bush government after its comprehensive defeat in last autumn’s mid-term elections. A change of heart on the environment was signalled earlier this month when the US administration unexpectedly announced that polar bears were now an endangered species because their habitat in the US state of Alaska had suffered from melting ice sheets caused by global warming. The government is now required to act on threats to the bears’ survival. The EU has its own so-called cap and trade scheme, under which industries are given a quota of carbon dioxide emissions: if they exceed the limits, they must pay for extra credits that can be bought from cleaner industries - an incentive to firms to go green.

We’ll see what this turns out to be, but I’d be stunned if this happened. I urge you all, however, to keep his last State of the Union Address in mind. He pledged bold action on energy. Not fifteen minutes later, his communications directors were on the air saying that he didn’t necessarily mean it.

Be careful when snakes sound.
–Chinese proverb.

During the last World Cup of Soccer, I told everyone who asked my opinion on the tournament that I thought Italy or Germany would win and that Brazil would be knocked off early because they were overrated this year. People gave me the “No wai!” response, but I stood by my cleats. I was right about Brazil then. I’m disappointed in them now, and no, my introduction isn’t foreshadowing of news that their national soccer team raped a stripper at a party: it’s a preamble to their government sanctioning the rape of the Amazon.

A Brazilian government plan set to go into effect this year will bring large-scale logging deep into the heart of the Amazon rain forest for the first time, in a calculated gamble that new monitoring efforts can offset any danger of increased devastation. The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in an attempt to create Brazil’s first coherent, effective forest policy, is to begin auctioning off timber rights to large tracts of the rain forest. The winning bidders will not have title to the land or the right to exploit resources other than timber, and the government says they will be closely monitored and will pay a royalty on their activities.

The architects of the plan say it will also help reduce tensions over land ownership in the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical forest, which loses an area the size of New Jersey every year to clear-cutting and timbering. In theory, 70 percent of the jungle is public land, but miners, ranchers and especially loggers have felt free to establish themselves in unpoliced areas, strip the land of valuable resources and then move on, mostly in the so-called arc of destruction on the eastern and southern fringes of the jungle.

But the called-for monitoring of the loggers allowed into the rain forest’s largely untouched center will come from a new, untested Forest Service with only 150 employees and from state and municipal governments. That concerns environmental and civic groups because local officials are more vulnerable to the pressures of powerful economic interests and to corruption. Further, the new system assumes that the world community will also play a part and buy timber only from merchants who are properly licensed and will avoid unscrupulous dealers. The plan “can be a good idea in places where the situation is already chaotic,” said Philip Fearnside, a researcher at the National Institute for Amazon Research in Manaus who recently visited this remote area. “But it’s a different story in areas where hardly any logging or deforestation has taken place, where you are actually going to be encouraging the introduction of predatory forces that don’t exist there now.”

On paper and in principle, said Stephan Schwartzman, an Amazon specialist at Environmental Defense in Washington, “I think everyone agrees that this system is an improvement over the current situation, which is totally out of control.” But in the end, he added, “everything is going to depend on how it is done and whether the financial and human resources are there to make it work.”

I don’t like it for the reasons stated: government corruption will inevitably lead to further destruction of the Amazon’s center than what the government is deeming acceptable, and I reject the rightness of any plan that introduces loggers into areas of the forest that previously went unused. I see enough of this at home, and it saddens me to see it further in Brazil.

On the day of her appointment, the first female chief of the U.S. Forest Service came under fire from a Senate Democrat who represents her state. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Montana forester Abigail Kimbell has shown she is “inclined to raise fees, close campgrounds and otherwise make it harder for people to access their lands to raise revenue.” Kimbell succeeds Dale Bosworth, who retired. Before her appointment by Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, she supervised national forests through northern Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas, and she helped develop President Bush’s “healthy forests” program, widely criticized by environmentalists as a giveaway to logging companies. As the agency’s 16th chief, Kimbell will be responsible for overseeing 155 national forests, 30,000 employees and a budget of more than $4 billion. The job does not require Senate confirmation.

Now, I made reference to the Duke Rape Case early in this thread, and all through the mess I declined to get involved, but I thought I’d comment on today’s news that the Prosecutor was begging off the case and moving on to other matters, leaving it to someone else in the DA’s office to clean. I must say, I haven’t seen a lawyer drop the ball this bad since Harriet Miers allowed herself to be nominated for the Supreme Court.

The one thing I never understood about the whole Duke Rape Case is this: everyone makes a big deal over the alleged rape, as they should, but as it became more and more likely that no rape occurred, why didn’t anyone make a fuss over the fact that College kids, some of whom weren’t old enough to drink, were hiring strippers? The whole situation was sad and shameless, from Jesse Jackson’s politicizing of the matter to the Lacrosse players’ shady, racist behavior to the prosecutor’s attention whoring to the stripper’s actual whoring. And oddly enough, if you look at it a certain way, they’re all the same people fighting over which of them is worst.

At this point, I was going to make a joke saying that I hope Scooter Libby’s trial doesn’t become a travesty, but Patrick Fitzgerald is the man in charge there, so it definitely won’t. Haven’t you heard? Scooter goes on trial this week, and it’s going to be quite a trial. I’m excited to learn about the inner-workings of the Administration, hear Libby’s story and watch as Patrick Fitzgerald lays down the law.

Now, to close. On my television, behind me, is the Eagles-Saints football game. I was thinking, earlier, as Reggie Bush dove into the endzone and celebrated near a giant banner featuring his jersey and number — isn’t it kind of funny that George Bush is blamed for destroying New Orleans, and Reggie Bush is credited with helping revitalize it. A tale of two Bushes, eh? (Especially interesting because the state of Louisiana and Drew Brees have more to do with their respective fields than do the Bushes.)

Got an update on the worst international tragedy of our time.

The conflict in Sudan’s western region of Darfur can only be solved through cessation of hostilities between the warring groups, which should then engage in dialogue, Jan Eliasson, the United Nations Secretary-General’s special envoy for Darfur, said. “We need to try our very best from all corners to encourage a political process,” Eliasson told reporters in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, where he met Sudan’s President Omar El Bashir and other officials. “If we don’t reach that goal, we run the risk of the Darfur nightmare continuing year after year,” Eliasson said. Fighting in Darfur between rebel and government forces since 2003 has caused the death of more than 200,000 people and forced another 2.5 million from their homes, some into neighbouring Chad.

Violence has persisted in Darfur despite a peace agreement reached in Abuja, Nigeria, in May 2006 between Khartoum and one of the main rebel groups, which took up arms against El Bashir’s government, alleging decades of marginalisation and oppression. The government responded with a military crackdown and has allegedly sponsored the mainly Arab Janjawid militia, which is accused of committing atrocities against unarmed non-Arab civilians. On Wednesday, Bill Richardson, governor of the US state of New Mexico, said during a visit to Sudan that the Darfuri rebel groups that had not signed the Abuja peace pact had agreed to a ceasefire with the government. Eliasson, however, said he was uncertain about the viability of a ceasefire agreement among Darfur’s increasingly fragmented rebel groups.

“I don’t know to what degree the non-signatories in Darfur are fully committed to this,” said Eliasson. “It is not completely clear. I can only say that the United Nations would welcome any effort to reduce the level of violence,” he said. The UN Security Council voted in August 2006 to send blue berets to the war-torn region to bolster the African Union’s (AU) peacekeeping mission, which has been hamstrung by funding problems and a weak mandate. But despite intense international pressure, Sudan has rejected a UN presence. The government, has, however, said it would allow technical UN support personnel to be deployed to Darfur to help the AU.

I don’t even understand how this happens. How do the UN, US, African and European Unions — how do they all manage to allow this to happen? And then, in perhaps the most incredible twist — well, how does the UN Envoy decide, years after this all begins, to declare that a political process needs to be fostered? It was international politics, and cowardice, that allowed this to go on. It’ll be military action, or the absolute demolition of the warring groups in Sudan, that’ll end it, and at this rate, the World is going to allow a genocide to reach its ultimate, disturbing conclusion. It’s sickening.

Today, the Congress is criticizing Bush’s “plan” in Iraq and I must say I’m with them. And how about this story? Let me tell you, I don’t think Air Force Sergeants should be stripping for Playboy, and I agree that they should be relieved of their duties.

The President has a new plan for Iraq. It’s the same as the old plan. Except it’s even less likely to be effective. For one thing, it calls for an increase of twenty one thousand troops which is ultimately like raindrops falling into the lake, and then there’s the fact that that the increases won’t happen overnight. It’ll take weeks to send the soldiers all, and only a few are leaving at a time.

We’d be better off using what we’ve already got, telling the Iraqis that we’re leaving in a year and a half — or that the vast majority of our troops are leaving and that the ones that stay will be there solely in an advisory position — and that the final stages of our mission, training replacements, will be done, and then they’ll be largely on their own. It’d be better than what he’s planning to do now.

In other news, the Democrats are holding the 2008 Democratic convention in Denver. Considering that I think that the future of the Democratic Party is in the Midwest, Northeast and West, I’m thrilled to see such a sensible decision made.

A Chicago Alderman was busted for taking bribes and is now facing jail-time and a tough re-election campaign. She apparently gave her bribe money to groups run by her family, mortgaging her future for today…and losing.

This is a test for Democracy in Chicago. I expect her to be voted out, and if she isn’t, then something is deeply wrong.

I’d like to talk about Somalia right now. For those of you unaware, the US is air-striking it, and Ethiopia recently went to war in there. It’s just an exercise by the Ethiopians and the Americans in Terrorist Removal, and I welcome it with open arms, but I’d like to re-direct you to this, a funky article that tells you what’s wrong with Europe today.

They are all in their early 20’s and regard themselves as British, but in recent weeks a group of men have left their families in the UK to go to Somalia to fight for that country’s Islamic leaders. These men insist they are not terrorists. They have not gone to join up with al-Qaeda or its many affiliates operating in East Africa, but have given up their jobs and studies to support the militia loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) which, until last month, controlled the Somali capital, Mogadishu. The Foreign Office concedes that it does not know how many of these young Britons went to sign up with an international brigade drawn from expatriate families across Europe. They come from families who sought asylum from the interminable wars to blight their homeland.

Any Somali reaching Britain is almost always given automatic leave to remain here by the immigration authorities. They know that they could never be deported back to a country riven by violence. It is unlikely there are any records of their travels because all are thought to have both Somali and UK nationality. But most will have flown to Kenya where UK passport holders can buy a visa at the airport. From there it is easy for them to make their way to the jungles and swamplands that line the porous borders with Somalia. While the US portrays the UIC as al-Qaeda sympathisers, many Somali families now settled in the UK , including those in the business community, believe that the Islamic coalition represented that country’s best hope for stability in years.

Community leaders in cities like Cardiff, Leicester and London that have a sizeable Somali presence, know of young men who travelled there including one who went to teach in Mogadishu and then joined the UIC militia when the fighting started. Many of these Britons who were forced into retreat when Ethiopian-led troops took control of Mogadishu may now find themselves in territory controlled by clans sympathetic to al-Qaeda, but that is because these are the only areas where the routed UIC forces can regard as safe havens.

It is not okay to leave the country you are in to join a group that calls itself a Religion Council. It is not okay to leave the country you are in to fight alongside the Islamic Council of Holy War, or whatever it’s calling itself. These people know full well that Somalia is a terrorist haven and that this council supports terrorism. By joining, they are terrorists and should not be allowed back in England. The UIC is a dangerous organization, and I have no sympathy for the people who are joining it.

George W. Bush has fielded teams consisting of players that have been passed by time during each of the last three seasons, spanning the course of the past six years. Therefore, it should be no surprise that Harriet Miers’ replacement at the hot corner is Fred Fielding.

A veteran Washington lawyer who has been through the legal battles of Watergate and served both Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan is President George W. Bush’s choice to be his White House counsel. Fred Fielding’s appointment was likely to be made Tuesday, according to a Bush administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the move has not yet been publicly announced. Fielding will become Bush’s top legal counsel just as Democrats, once again the majority party in Congress, plan to take a more critical look at the administration. From the Iraq war to environmental policy and secret surveillance, the Democrats who now control both the House and Senate are armed with subpoena power and ready to summon panels of witnesses.

Fielding, of course, played for Ronald Reagan’s Iran-Contras and on the famed Watergate Bombers team of the 1970s. At his current age, he should probably be playing in The Old Tymer’s League (with The Geriatrics, managed by Bill Clinton, with Ace starting pitcher George H.W. Bush and featuring the occasional appearance by Jimmy Carter at first base, along with Gerald Ford in the outfield…before he died) or at the Local County Jail (if not his hometown’s AAA affiliate) but now, he’s going to the show, and it’s a waste of a roster spot, if you ask me because it means that he’ll be playing for the Washington Nationals as managed by George Walker, making a 100-loss season about inevitable. The only way to solve this, I say, is to appoint Donald Rumsfeld Assistant Skipper to Pitching Coach Robert Gates and hope that Condoleeza Rice can play every other position at all times.

–

Seriously, though, Mr. President. There’s a little thing called sex, and it sometimes causes a little thing called life, and that life carried to term often brings about little babies, and those babies grow up into adults. Adults wind up becoming senior citizens, but in between, there’s a such thing as youth, which often brings vigor and insight. It’s nice to sometimes bring in a veteran who’ll swing for the fences and teach the kids how to steal (second, not loot the Treasury…), but it’s probably for the best if you don’t fill your whole team with them.

(On that note, I would like to publicly extend congratulations to Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn, as well as condemnation for those writers who didn’t vote in Bert Blyleven or Goose Gossage. Now, if I can be serious for a moment, I’d like to say that Bush’s appointment of Fred Fielding is a shame not just because Fielding is old. That isn’t even the main reason — the real reason is that he’s a crook and a liar.)

This is my atomic bomb and should be our Manhattan Project.

Chairman G. Richard Wagoner Jr. on Sunday unveiled an innovative prototype, the Chevrolet Volt — a plug-in vehicle that derives its power primarily from electricity rather than gasoline — as the world’s automakers take on global warming and U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Wagoner’s announcement underscores the depth of GM’s previous miscalculation on alternative vehicles and the degree to which the U.S. automotive landscape is changing. In 1990, GM introduced the concept of an all-electric car, the EV1. The vehicle made it to U.S. consumers but didn’t survive through the decade. GM hasn’t given a date when consumers can buy the Volt because the advanced lithium-ion batteries needed to power the vehicle — similar to technology used in cellphones — are still years from widespread use in automobiles.

Still, Wagoner and other GM executives have pledged to give the electric-car technology high priority within the company’s massive product development operation. “In the end, this is all going to be about delivering on these products,” Wagoner said. The world’s auto executives meeting here at the Detroit auto show say that any big push into alternative vehicles will have to come from the automakers themselves. The executives said it isn’t clear yet what role Washington will play under the new Democratic-controlled Congress. Some Democrats have proposed higher federal fuel economy standards. Wagoner reacted strongly to calls from Washington lawmakers for government-mandated increases to as high as 40 miles per gallon from the current level of 27.5 mpg for passenger cars, with a lower level for trucks. “That’s simply impossible,” he said. Wagoner, and other executives, said the industry is doing its part to confront the nation’s energy problems through bigger investments in advanced technology. Analysts in Detroit say any moves in Washington could come to a standstill, given the auto industry’s unified lobbying position against major increases in fuel efficiency.

Right here and now, the Congress should demand that all cars in the United States made in ten years and later run with this battery and provide the funding to make it possible. It would be an atomic bomb on the heart of oil tyrants everywhere and would deliver a new freedom for America and the world in the same way that the defeat of the British in the War of 1812 was liberating for this nation. It won’t happen but damn if it isn’t the absolute right thing to do.

And since I just dropped the nuclear metaphor, what’s the harm (beyond radioactive fallout) in using it again to describe an Al Gore run, something that is possible but improbable, though it would absolutely level the political world.

I say Al should do it. But I’ve been saying that for years.

I’m not a fan of John McCain. I think he’s a fake and a liar as a politician, and a cheat as a man. From his ties to unethical lobbyists to his media-made (and McCain-fueled) image as a “straight talker,” I just think he’s slimy, and that slime becomes greener when we look at the way he abandoned his first wife.

With that said, I must add that his political judgement is bad, too, although I’m sure I’ve said it before.

In a week when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney joined the 2008 gop presidential primary race and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani started hiring aides to man his bid, allies of front-runner Sen. John McCain suggested that the guy he’s most concerned about is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The reason: While Giuliani and Romney are moving to the right, Gingrich is already there. But he’s not that worried: Gingrich still hasn’t decided to run, and it’s getting late.

Are you kidding me? Newt Gingrich won’t run, but beyond that overwhelming truth there’s the fact that Gingrich was chased out of the Republican Party by his own Republican soldiers (with a little help from Larry Flynt) and hasn’t received an ovation from anyone in the “mainstream” of the American public since he announced his resignation. And McCain is afraid of him? The only man McCain should be afraid of looks at him from the mirror everyday.

Moving right along…George Bush is still a criminal.

President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans’ mail without a judge’s warrant, the Daily News has learned. The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a “signing statement” that declared his right to open people’s mail under emergency conditions. That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it. Bush’s move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.

“Despite the President’s statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people’s mail without a warrant,” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill. Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail. “The [Bush] signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington. “The danger is they’re reading Americans’ mail,” she said. “You have to be concerned,” agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush’s claim. “It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we’ve ever known.”

It’s getting so bad at the White House — what with Bush’s assertions of Executive Power in the face of The Law — that Harriet Miers, who is a bumbling baboon of a broad, has resigned her post as his chief counsel, a move that acknowledges that he’s going to be confronted by the Legislative Arm of the Law and Miers can’t handle it. Maybe he’ll ask his fathers friends from Iran-Contra to help him — with his impending cover-up of the many crimes committed and justified by his administration, and not just with Iraq.

My, the Republican Party’s best, cleanest hope for the future is Rudy Giuliani…and that’s pretty fucked up.

I’ve got to imagine that someone is going to prison in Israel for this leak.

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources. The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb. Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnels” into the targets. “Mini-nukes” would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.

“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the sources. The plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad’s assessment that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.

A part of me doubts the legitimacy of this. What kind of Israeli would leak such a thing if it were true? It gives greenlight to the enemy, for one. Now, you might ask — why wouldn’t they? and I would tell you that Israel is always under threat, especially now from Iran. Any Israeli who would divulge this information to a newspaper deserves to rot in hell for jeopardizing his country’s existence. Of course, this might be an Israeli message to the Iranian government to stop but I really doubt that.

It seems like an internal Israeli attempt to derail the program by prompting international criticism, something that I think it’ll fail at and should fail at. If this has to be done it should be done, and I think it’s a matter of good faith and citizenship to support this measure if you’re an Israeli.

Which means that, yes, I endorse this attack, if it happens. Which makes me a hawk, like John McCain, and I’ve got a few things to add about him.

The Arizona senator’s hawkish position that the United States must do what is necessary to win the war might appeal to hard-core Republicans, but it also has the potential to turn off most Americans whose support for the nearly 4-year-old war has diminished. “I have presidential ambitions, but they pale in comparison to what I think is most important to our nation’s security. If it destroys any ambitions I may have, I’m willing to pay that price gladly,” McCain said Friday, brushing aside scenarios of political fallout.

I hope he’s serious, re: the bold, then he’s going to have a lot of inner peace in two years as if he keeps his position, re: the italics, he is going to be trounced in the primary and in the general election, if he makes it beyond South Carolina. (I don’t think he will, though, as he’s a bit of a loser, a bit of a hothead, and a bit of a bad campaigner, to go along with Too new-age to be Truly Conservative, too Conservative to be Liberal in any sense of the word.)

A beginning is a beginning. Not a finish. I’ve been preaching patience about the Democrats and ethics. I am, of course, a Democrat, and I do, of course, believe in ethics reform, amongst other things in the November platform. But I know, as I’ve said, and understand, as I’ve stated, that politics are politics, and I’ll wait for things to actually happen before I celebrate them. Imagine that!

Well, last night, Democrats proved that they, and their leadership, are committed to ethical change: The U.S. House of Representatives, after installing its new Democratic leadership, voted to ban lawmakers from flying on corporate jets and accepting gifts and meals from lobbyists. And today, they reformed earmark legislation, too:

The House, in its second day of Democratic reign, changed budget rules that have allowed deficits to swell with lawmakers‘ pet projects and President Bush ‘s tax cuts. One rule requires that tax cuts have corresponding cuts in government spending or tax increases elsewhere to pay for them. Likewise, any increase in entitlement programs like Medicare would have to have corresponding tax increases, or equal cuts in other government programs, under the pay-as-you-go rule reinstated Friday. It was adopted 280-154. “This is putting the American taxpayer on a collision course with higher taxes,” said Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, top Republican on the Budget Committee. At the same time, House lawmakers passed a Democratic proposal to require lawmakers to disclose publicly the pet projects — referred to as earmarks in legislative terms — they want for their districts or states, such as Alaska‘s bridge to nowhere in the last Congress. Republicans had made a similar move last year, and GOP critics of pet projects applauded Democrats‘ efforts to require greater disclosure.

I must say I’m impressed. I’m looking forward to more.

This is kind of cute. Lieberman had created an independent party for his run for Senate, once he lost the Democratic primary, and now — now one of his critics has taken over the party and elected himself its chairman. It’s humorous, and sort-of clever on The Critic’s part, except for one thing: it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. Lieberman likely won’t run again in 2010 and if he did, it’d probably be as a successful Democrat. It’s like buying someone’s old house once they’ve left it to spite them. It’s somewhat cute, a little creepy, but ultimately devoid of meaning.

Which makes it, of course, a perfect political gesture.

Today, the new Congress opens for business. I can say I’m excited, but not particularly optimistic. I’m curious to see how much of their platform they genuinely try to enact, how much they pretend to want to enact, and how much the Republicans block from Enact.

We’ll see how serious the Democrats, and Republicans, are.

Look at this and tell me it isn’t bullshit with a straight face.

In his recent year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts has renewed his call for an increase in judicial pay, claiming that the problem has “now reached the level of a constitutional crisis and threatens to undermine the strength and independence of the federal judiciary.” Longtime VC readers will not be surprised to learn that I disagree with the Chief Justice. In series of posts a few months ago (see here and here), I criticized earlier calls for a judicial pay increase, including Roberts’ argument in his previous annual report. To briefly summarize, my main points were that federal judges have an exceptionally low turnover/resignation rate and there is little or no evidence that the quality of federal judiciary is suffering because salaries are too low. Nor is it accurate compare federal judges to partners at big firms (as advocates of a pay increase often do) because judges 1) have better retirement benefits, 2) have much shorter and more flexible hours, and 3) often have more interesting work and other nonpecuniary benefits (e.g. - power and prestige) that law firm lawyers (and even we professors!) get less of.

All of these points are equally applicable to the Chief Justice’s latest call for a judicial pay increase. At the very least, they deflate the somewhat hyperbolic claim that the state of judicial pay is a “constitutional crisis.” As I noted in one of my earlier posts, current judicial pay is not exactly low:

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: $212,000
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court: 203,000
Court of Appeals Judge: 175,100
District (trial) Judge: 165,200

Yes, these salaries are lower than what partners at top private firms make, but for the reasons indicated in the linked posts, that does not prevent the federal judiciary from attracting and retaining top-quality people. In his reports, Chief Justice Roberts tries to justify a judicial pay increse by comparing judges’ salaries to those of other types of lawyers who make more money. However, the key public policy question is not whether judges make as much money as Group X, but whether judges’ salaries are high enough to attract the level of talent we need. In the current report, Roberts adds to his earlier argument by making the claim that judicial pay should increase because, unlike in 1969, when federal district judges had higher salaries than the Dean of Harvard Law School, today district judges earn “less than half” as much money as deans and “senior professors” at “top law schools.” Even if the data Roberts cites is accurate, it doesn’t justify a judicial pay increase. The vast majority of law professors earn far less than district judges do ($165,200), and while law professors have good retirement benefits, they are not comparable to those of federal judges (retirement at full pay for any judge who has reached the age of 65 and has had at least 15 years of service). To the extent that the comparison between judges and law professors is appropriate at all, one should compare total compensation, not just salaries, and one should also compare the judges to the full range of law professors, not just “senior professors” at a few top schools. The comparison to top law school deans is even more misleading than that to law professors. A law school dean has to run an institution with dozens of faculty and staff and hundreds of students, as well as be expert in law. Federal judges have much less managerial responsibility than this. It is no more inappropriate for federal judges to have lower salaries than top law school deans than it is for them to have lower salaries than corporate executives.

I don’t blame Roberts for advocating increases in judicial pay; lobbying for the interests of his fellow judges is arguably part of the chief justice’s job and Roberts’ predecessors (Warren Burger and William Rehnquist) took the same position in their own annual reports. Nonetheless, his case for a judicial pay increase is far from compelling.

I’m bothered by the fact that this is the only thing in his report. Man, only Republican judges would believe that 200,000 dollars isn’t quality pay and that it’s a Constitutional crisis if they don’t get more money. The truth is that you go into the public sector for reasons beside money. If you want to line your pockets, go into Wall Street. Or write pornographic reports and send them to Congress.