retooned

Boycott The Glacier Club, Now.

2010-06-08T20:07:00.001-07:00

Rather than comment, I'll just let the cartoon speak for itself, with the help of a story reprinted here from the Durango Telegraph:

Forest Service inks golf swap
Modified land exchange draws strong objections

by Will Sands

The Chris Park Campground sign welcomes visitors to the popular Haviland Lake Recreation Area, located north of Durango. Last week, the Forest Service announced approval of a modified plan, which will trade 228 acres of public land near Chris Park to the Glacier Club for a new golf course and up to 125 homes. In exchange, the agency will receive 170 acres of inholdings and $444,000 in cash./File photo
by Will Sands

Hiking trails and picnic tables are on the verge of becoming fairways and vacation homes just north of Durango. Last week, the Forest Service announced approval of a modified plan to replace a portion of the Haviland Lake Recreation Area with nine additional holes of golf and as many as 125 homes. In exchange, the agency will convert two parcels high on the Forest Service wish list into public land and receive a generous amount of cash. The approval is already stirring strong emotions in the greater Durango community, and at least one appeal is already in the works.

Several years ago, Western Land Group, a Denver-based outfit specializing in facilitating public land transactions, approached the Forest Service on behalf of the Glacier Club. At that time, the resort had secured options to purchase two 160-acre parcels representing the only private inholdings remaining in the Hermosa Creek Roadless Area. One is located in Hermosa Park near the Hermosa Creek trailhead and the other sits high above the Animas River Valley at Mitchell Lakes. Speaking to the significance of the parcels, Ann Bond, Forest Service public information officer, commented, “The parcels are the only reason we’re considering this. They’ve been on our acquisition list for decades. Those are the last two private parcels in the Hermosa Roadless Area.”

In exchange, the Glacier Club requested approximately 320 acres north of the existing resort and currently inside the Haviland Lake Recreation Area. The acreage would be subdivided into exclusive homesites and another nine holes of golf, bringing the resort’s total to 36 holes.

After several years of study, numerous public hearings and various land appraisals, the Forest Service put a modified stamp on the land exchange. Last week, just prior to Memorial Day Weekend, the agency announced approval of a “lighter” land swap configuration.

According to the decision, the Forest Service will acquire the coveted 160 acres in Hermosa Park as well as a 10.3-acre inholding inside the Weminuche Wilderness. In exchange, the agency will transfer 228 acres inside the Haviland Lake Recreation Area to the Glacier Club. In order to pick up some slack between appraised values, the Glacier Club will make a $444,000 “cash-equalization payment” to the U.S. government. Mitchell Lakes, the other 160 acre parcel, was dropped from the land exchange when the Glacier Club and the land owner were unable to agree upon a purchase price.

Upon making the announcement, San Juan National Forest Supervisor Mark Stiles wrote that the final decision was an attempt to strike a balance.

“We thank the public for a lively and energetic discourse, which I believe led to a decision that better reflects the community’s values,” he wrote.

Though the decision was applauded by U.S. Sen. Mark Udall and U.S. Rep. John Salazar, it generated a more subdued response on the ground in Durango. Kitty Benzar, a concerned citizen and longtime Haviland Lake user, expressed her disappointment. She noted that the final outcome too closely resembled the original proposal and vowed to file an appeal of the decision. “I think the Forest Service’s modified alternative is a total loss to the public,” she said. “I think the next step of the process has to be an appeal.”

Benzar reiterated many longstanding public concerns about the land swap – a long tradition of hiking, cross-country skiing, bird watching and other activities at Haviland Lake; that the Hermosa Park parcel is too remote to be considered a comparable exchange; and that the Glacier Club development would effectively wipe out a large portion of a historic wagon road, among other things.
“This exchange is pretty much the same now as it was then,” she said. “It’s obvious that the Forest Service has been in bed with the Glacier Club since the beginning and is ready to give away the farm.”

When the land swap first saw daylight, Rockwood resident Richard Robinson formed the group, Save the Haviland Lake Recreation Area. Though Robinson shared Benzar’s concerns, he did credit the Forest Service for making some progress in the last three years but added that it was not enough.

“What they’ve done is more in the right direction,” he said. “But it still doesn’t get us to where we want to be.”

Robinson added that the proposal does not offer an adequate buffer between the proposed Glacier Park development and the Chris Park campground. In addition, it makes no guarantee against the resort pursuing similar expansions at some point in the future.

“It’s true that we could have lost all the acreage and come up totally empty,” Robinson said. “But this thing is still far from perfect.”

Like Benzar, Save the Haviland Lake Recreation Area has started looking into an appeal. The exchange agreement was signed last Friday but will not be implemented until after a 45-day appeal period has ended and all appeals are resolved. And while the Glacier Club had planned on breaking ground in 2011, resolution of the differences surrounding the land swap could take longer than expected.

“I don’t think the Glacier Club should start getting ready to move dirt anytime soon,” Benzar said in closing. •

Documents regarding the Hermosa Park Land Exchange are available for public review at: http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/sanjuan/projects/nepa_project.shtml ?project=20955 or in person at the San Juan Public Lands Center, 15 Burnett Court.

2010-06-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

Directly after 9/11, there was a small spurt of sanity regarding the reasons why American had just suffered the worst terror attacks of its short history. Chalmers Johnson wrote an excellent book about it, called Blowback that outlines the causes and effects of American Empire.

Sadly, that brief period in which we actually attempted to discern the root causes of terrorism was snuffed out by a tidal wave of groupthink nationalism, engendering classics like "freedom fries" and "they hate us because we're free."

Israel's boneheaded attack on a group of civilian ships carrying aid for Gaza might have been a chapter in Johnson's book illustrating exactly the right way to not only create a new generation of Islamic extremists, but enrage just about everyone else.

Leaving aside the larger question of the blockade's legitimacy, the entire episode could have been handled without drama. Israel could have allowed the boats to dock at Gaza, then distributed the aid or confiscated any alleged weapons without compromising their need determine what was on the ships in the slightest. Instead, in seeming oblivious imitation of the Bush Doctrine, Israel sent heavily armed assault teams abseiling against a group of unarmed activists, including an 18-month-old child, the Irish Nobel peace laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire, and an elderly Jewish survivor of the Holocaust.

Oy.

Worse, the Obama administration has been forced into a mediating position between our allies Turkey and Israel, completely derailing a peace process already on life support.

As the controversy inevitably pivots into squabbles about a state's right to defend itself, Israel's serial inability to see that using a sledgehammer only makes the problem worse is as frighteningly obvious as it is maddeningly, infuriatingly... unsurprising.

The Fickle Face of Sprawl

2010-05-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

The impact of growth on a small community like Durango is significant. We may be in a recession, but development impacts on infrastructure regardless. If there is money to build, there must be money to mitigate impact, because it's fundamentally unfair to make the many pay for the profits of the few.

Costs in increased traffic, pollution, infrastructure damage, cultural heritage loss, wildlife displacement, tourism decline, wetlands loss, quality of life degradation and increased housing costs effects everyone. More growth does not make housing and land prices go down. It makes them go up. Durango was more affordable 15 years ago, before the boom. Boomtowns are expensive places to live precisely because of unregulated development.

For example, during the boom years, 2000-2006, La Plata Couty's average yearly wage grew $7,000, from $27,223 to $34,029. I'd like to know what the demographic of that is, (the spread amongst the professions, but that data isn't available. We could reasonably infer, however, from the increases in employment by profession, that most of that income growth took place in construction and realty.)

La Plata also added around 5,000 jobs from 2000-2006. The county's population grew by around 5,000 people, which means that the area attracted as many new people as it could employ, hardly a ringing endorsement for the benefits of growth for those already here, and most likely the reason unemployment started at 3% in 2000 and ended at 3% in 2007. We should expect a drop in the percentage if rampant development were so good for our economy.

www.laplatacountycolorado.org/business/population_table.htm
www.city-data.com/county/La_Plata_County-CO.html

Total county expenditures in 2000 equalled $50,074.546, $9.6 million of which was capital spending, or spending including infrastructure. Total county expenditures in 2006 equalled $70.3 million, $16 million of which was capital spending. Spending on our infrastructure almost doubled during the boom. Growth is expensive, and as I've documented, its impact in jobs/wealth is minimal, except for the few who are directly involved in building and selling. Granted, some of the money gets spread back into the community, but it's not a fount of public manna as so many of these folks proclaim.

la plata county budgets
www.scan.org/5%20-%20La%20Plata%20County.pdf

Commissioner Riddle has made some very poor decisions recently, but this one is particularly bad. She made a statement proceeding her decision to demand a 10% cap on impact fees without negotiating. I've responded to the key parts of her statement below:

I am proposing that we pass a flat impact fee of 10% with no ratcheting effect of that percentage.

Not only is this too low, but without the ability to adjust it upwards or downwards, the country effectively gives away a tool to slow or quicken growth. It's akin to the Fed saying, "we're going to permanently set interest rates at 10% and not worry about the economy." Not only do we forfeit monies that the county needs for maintenance, we revert back to a case by case negotiation that is inequitable and unpredictable.

Because of the inability of Commissioners Riddle and Hotter to understand "compromise" means a counteroffer, that is exactly what happened. More inequality, more expense.

A reasonable exchange could hvae gone like this: White: 60%. Riddle: 10% White: 40% (what he next offered) Riddle: 30% White: 38% Riddle: 32% White: 35% Riddle: Deal.

35% impact fees is not unreasonable, and would be pretty close to the statewide average. Instead, we have nothing. Commissioner Hotters complete refusal to allow any fee is particularly egregious, and an irresponsible position for an elected leader to take.

On the issue of growth paying for itself, I am not certain that I whole-heartedly agree with this premise... I have come to believe the cost of growth should be paid for by all of the residents of the county. Transportation and roads are used by each and every individual, whether they carry goods to market, ride a school bus or bicycle to work. It is important infrastructure that needs to be paid for by everyone.

This is a huge change for Commissioner Riddle, whom I endorsed under the slogan: Grow Smart, and who just in April stated, “Right now, 100 percent of the impacts are paid by the community at-large,"

http://www.durangoherald.mobi/article/?article_id=187442

Commissioner Riddle would never have been elected with the slogan, "Residents Should Pay for Growth," because not everybody benefits from growth. Those that benefit directly are the developers, landowners and builders. Jobs may or may not result. There is no guarantee a business park will be filled, but its impact on water, wildlife, and infrastructure is a certainty.

The reality is that we as government cannot continue to have new growth and provide the infrastructure needed as well as all of the other services that are being utilized at unprecedented levels with our stymied economy and with oil and gas on the decline.

Precisely why growth should pay it's own way. This is classic privatization of profits and nationalization of loss.

The 10% impact fee as well as the idea of increasing the mill levy came as a direct compromise proposed by one of those entrepreneurs, who has built a business with locally grown employees who love and want to continue to live in our community. That same conversation shed some light on an area that I had been unaware ofin the cost required via existing taxes and fees already placed on businesses that shoulder the weight of building our economy.

As I've shown, growth does not "shoulder the weight of building our economy." At best, it is neutral, and at worst, it costs us real dollars. The damage to our health and the environment is less calculable, but no less real. Commissioner Riddle's decisions are not in the interest of country residents, and certainly not the platform of "smart growth" she was elected on.

BP's BS

2010-05-25T09:56:00.001-07:00

The news from the disaster this fine Sunday is that BP has declared scientists will not be allowed access to the accident site because measuring the rate of oil flow is...well, here, read it for yourself:

BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.

"The answer is no to that," a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. "We're not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It's not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response."

That's right, actually getting a solid estimate of the amount of poison that is currently geysering into the waters of the Gulf is not desirable, or even really that important. No need to know how much oil boom we should deploy, how many volunteers we might recruit, how much of the coastline is at risk...none of that is in any way connected to the amount of oil being vomited up.

With this little ditty, the very last drop of BP's credibility as the contrite corporate giant trying to make good has vanished into the muck of its actions on the ground. From trying to get employees of the doomed drilling rig to sign waivers to their abysmal blame fest before congress last week, the British energy giant has pretty much proven what everyone except for Sarah Palin already knew: BP doesn't give a rat's ass about the Gulf, the people that live there, or the absolute disaster they have inflicted through sheer greed. The company is in full damage control mode, which means denial, cover-ups, and massive amounts of bullshit.

The US should respond with subpoenas, charges and jail sentences if warranted, and a host of new regulations that will permanently outlaw deep water drilling. As the continually more hideous debacle unfurling before us proves, this kind of extraction is beyond our ability to perform safely.

[UPDATE 5-19]

60 Minutes has released an excellent documentary, speaking with one of the survivors of the rig explosion, who has laid serious charges of negligence on BP's shoulders. It's must see viewing.

Watch it here:

http://www.fancast.com/tv/60-Minutes/97707/1496069406/60-Minutes%2C-05.16.10/videos

Vatican Upheavals

2010-04-07T16:42:00.001-07:00

There's a big part of the Catholic church that revolves around forgiveness. I'm not Catholic, or even Christian for that matter, but it seems to me that being forgiven for whatever you did sort of revolves around the idea of doing "it" right the next time. Or maybe not doing "it" ever again. If the guys at the Vatican had been, like, my wife...I would have told them to tell their story walkin' back around 1956. But that's sort of the nature of long term-relationships: the more baggage you've got, the harder it is to make a break.

Some of that baggage must be pretty good. Suitcases full of nostalgia, surely. Steamer trunks of solace, carefully packed and folded when someone passes on. Maybe even a carry-on bag of mischievous notions, kept ready for a little spontaneous venting at the late night barstool.

I'm not sure I could lug around crates of pedophilia, though.

The Church has had ample opportunity to do something real about the consistent scandals emerging from it's ranks for lo, these many years. Instead, they've just stuffed more and more down the hole. It's time for a big change. Ordain women. Get rid of abstinence. Put in a one strike rule...do something. And you better do it soon, guys. It's getting pretty damn heavy on the other end.

GOPrescription

2010-03-23T21:41:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finally over. We have reform, and it's a great thing. Not single payer, not perfect by any means, but a pretty damn good start. And, of course, there is already a backlash. Republicans in the form of a grumpy John McCain have put the country on notice that everything and anything the Dems do will be stonewalled because...well, because they won.

I don't begrudge the GOP a little bitterness. The ones that weren't totally in the pocket of the insurance cabal actually seemed quite sincere in their ideology. The utter despair I'm seeing amongst their ranks reminds me of how I felt when Bush went to war. I can relate to that hollowness of the chest, and the almost constant stress headache.

But I have to say, deciding that the answer to losing this battle is to turn into a brick wall, refusing to even allow committees to meet for non-partisan things like pine beetle control and such, is just crazy. And it's bad for the country.

I disagree profoundly with the conservatives, but I don't want a war. I want them to have a voice, a seat at the table. I want that because I continue to hope that they might see, when the earth does not go screaming into the sun over the next few years, that progressives actually have some pretty good ideas. And, I want to know what they think, too, because they are Americans who deserve to be heard.

So come on, guys. Drop the petty lawsuits. Stop with the tantrums. We know you're pissed, but removing yourself from the discussion out of spite isn't going to do you any good. We've been there. We know.

The question, however, becomes more serious when a closer look is taken at the internal politics that seemingly led to the embarrassing faux pas. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is caught between strident right wing expansionists, and a desire to heal the strained relations with the U.S. that have hardened since Obama's inauguration. The Prime Minister's ability to operate unsabotaged by his own people is now an issue, and that, of course, has implications for his tenure in office.

With the Arab League summit in Tripoli looming, Netanyahu must surely be aware that America will expect movement on Israel's part in return for Biden, in the words of one Haaretz correspondent, "...wiping the spit off his face by pretending it was rain." Europe, too, has withheld upgrading various agreements with Israel until it becomes clear that peace talks will actually take place.

If there was ever a doubt that the first thing the Palestinian Authority would want on the table was borders, there is none now. Israel will be unable to credibly demand that the U.S. back them on security being the first order of business, and Netanyahu has only himself to thank for that.

Supreme Court Smash-Up!

2010-02-03T20:58:00.000-08:00

G.W. Inc. let loose the Dogs of War. With their ridiculous ruling last week, the Supreme Court, (or at least the stupid members of it), has let loose the Pigs of Corruption, shattering 80 years of steady effort to keep big money from buying the country. Not that the law ever did a great deal of disinfecting, but at least it shown a dim light on the country's bribe bosses.

Of course, the logical progression of this nonsense is for a corporation to run for office. After all, they are seen as persons in the eyes of the law. With this ruling, they have been granted the right to speech. Why not go whole hog and ditch the formalities?

That particular joke already occurred to the Progressive PR Firm Murray Hill. These fine folks are protesting the ruling by running for the House in Maryland's 8th District. Old Bill Klein even volunteered to steer their yacht of office.

It's pretty funny now, but there is a slight risk underlying the mirth. What if they win? Exxon for Senator. Coca-Cola for Speaker. Wal-Mart for President. God Bless America.

The Left Jab

2010-01-19T23:32:00.000-08:00

I have coffee every Thursday with a good friend whose politics are opposite mine. We tend to look for common ground, and here's one patch we agree on: America is starting to look ungovernable. As Steven Flynn put it Tuesday morning on the Diane Rehm Show: "the U.S. has become like a bus where everyone has a brake. It won't run."

Exactly what the hell the voters of Massachusetts thought they were doing by electing a Palin wannabe is quite beyond me. Fortunately, Mitchell Bard's excellent post outlines the main points of this epic act of stupidity, so I can at least get my head around how it happened.

Have a taste:

Bush spent eight years running the country into the ground. The issues that seemed to bother Massachusetts voters (the economy and the abuses on Wall Street) not only originated and/or were encouraged under Bush, but the current Republicans in Congress have no desire to help on either of these counts. They oppose stimulus or anything else to help put Americans back to work (no, more tax cuts for the rich won't accomplish that goal), and they have even less interest in reforming financial regulation (they've come out against consumer protection and re-regulating the industry).

In effect, the voters of Massachusetts decided that even though it took eight years of Republican rule to create these problems, the Democrats should have solved them in 11 months (even as the Republicans tried to block solutions at every turn). And for the Democrats' failure, the state should send a Republican to Washington who has no interest in fixing the problems his party created in the first place. And again, the result will be 41 Republicans blocking any Democratic programs aimed at fixing the financial industry or unemployment. Democracy worked perfectly.

Yup. Welcome to to the traffic jam. And thanks, Massachusetts. We owe you one.

The Natural History Of Sarah Palin

2009-11-23T16:55:00.000-08:00

The release of Sarah Palin's book, Going Rogue, has been an occasion of great frivolity amongst those of us on the left. We get to mock her inability to tell Iraq from Iran and her penchant for rewriting her fuck-ups as frustrated angst. For good measure, we rerun all her greatest hits: the shaman, Tina Fey, the lipstick, the Couric fiasco...you know. It's great fun, and we all can make ourselves feel better about the much more sinister aspects of anti-Obama nutballdome creeping out from under every slime covered rock at an increasingly alarming rate.

There's no way that such a kook, no, such a dimwit kook could possibly ever get the keys to the nuclear codes, we smugly reassure ourselves. The America electorate is not that dumb.

But it doesn't have to be.

Let me explain: Darwinian evolution tells us that natural selection selects in favor of those individuals who most successfully exploit the environment that they inhabit. Creatures that live in cold climates get gradually more fur covered, critters that eat tall plants develop longer necks, etc. You know the theory. But what if we export something sort of like natural selection to political evolution?

Through dint of her obvious dimness, Sarah Palin is spectacularly unqualified to be President. But that particular attribute may not be the thing that decides if she's going to own the Oval. In fact, it may not be important at all. G.W. Bush, as I'm sure all but the most densely arranged of us can agree, was not qualified to be president either. A "C" student with no particular passion for much other than coke and booze, W. spent most of the first half of his life doing the rich dick thing and embarrassing his parents. However, George did have one shining attribute. He was a charismatic.

The success of Bush in securing the White House for two terms was based not on his wisdom, his deference, his intellect, or his judgment, all of which we expect to be in the exceptional range for our Presidents. In fact, he sucked at all of those, as became all too apparent by 2006.

W. succeeded because he was the perfect puppet for men who lacked the charismatic presence that is the only true necessity in these times of tweets and sound bites. Using Bush as a proxy, orcish neocons like Cheney were able to advance a radicalized version of American Exceptionalism that was previously relegated, literally, to the crazies.

And here's how Darwin applies: the proxy thing? It works. Political "selection" did not select Bush for the things that we traditionally desire in a leader. It selected Bush because of a potent combination of fear, vote rigging, ideological bluster, tactical cover-ups, and a dangerously shallow uber-patriotism.

That last bit sound familiar? Are you a "Real American?"

Power in the general sense is not interested in how it is held, only that it is held. In other words, Bush was successful in that he held power for the maximum time allotted. People took note, believe me. And they thought, "man, if we can do that once, we can do it again." The formula worked. The creature grew fur, the neck sprouted to great lengths, the political blueprint on how to seize power without having to actually have any of the prerequisites was recorded for future reproduction.

To be fair, the patsy controlled by a scheming, brilliant mind is an old form of human behavior, and we can find many examples of it throughout our tiny history as a country. But, in living memory at least, the office of the President has always seemed somewhat protected from this kind of crass manipulation.

Not anymore.

The true Bush legacy is not a wrecked economy, a ravaged environment, or the twisted mess that is Iraq and Afghanistan. It is that the most powerful office in the history of the world is exquisitely and profoundly subvertable, if only you know how.

Sarah Palin could easily be the newest species in a highly successful linage of patsies. Groomed to be passionate about her righteousness, wrapped in designer clothes and shallowly glamourous, willfully ignorant of any real issues and accepted by a frighteningly large number of Americans as "genuine," Palin is Bush 2.0. She represents a new level, the next step in a political evolution that is increasingly convinced that only a rigid ideology of short-term exploitation and control will solve humanity's problems.

In fact, she's perfect for the job.

All of a sudden, I'm not really in the mood to laugh at her much anymore.

retooned on the Huffington Post

2009-10-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

My work for the Telegraph and perhaps more besides will be posted as a blog for the Huffington Post as of today.

View my premiere offering at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shan-wells/cartoon-mcinnis-the-fossi_b_314664.html

A proposal for the unjustly maligned right.

2009-09-28T23:34:00.000-07:00

Over the last few weeks, several conservatives have become visibly upset at being labeled racists for their opposition to President Obama's attempts to pull the nation out of near-bankruptcy and give health care to the poor.

I quite agree. Racism should have no place in the debate. And yet, what else can you call pictures of our black president as a monkey, a Sambo, or a witch-doctor? What else can you call Beck and Limbaugh's fear-mongering? Instead of shooting the messenger, it seems to me that these citizens should be mad at their own ranks. It was not liberals sending those e-mails, marching with those signs, or carrying those assault rifles. It was conservatives.

Many conservatives ask: "where is [the liberal] apology [for defaming honest dissent as racist.]" I know just how they feel. For some time now, I've been asking where the conservative apology is for labeling liberals "America-hating traitors," even when our dissent turned out to be justified. There were no WMD. We did torture illegally. Bush did lie. Imagine our frustration.

Opposition to reform is to be expected and welcomed. There are many conservatives who have honest disagreements, and America needs to hear them. What we also need to hear is a Republican denunciation of the race hate that seems to have infected their base. Instead, the GOP has chosen to further insult liberals as socialists.

Tell you what, folks of the right: you first. Reject the racists in your ranks. Apologize for your unfair characterizations of liberals. I'll be right there to make up after you do. Otherwise, all I can say is, welcome to the club of unfairly defamed patriots, and the slow dissolution of American civility.

Sotomayor in Context:

2009-05-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

From Nominee Sotomayor's speech delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and published in 2002 in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal.

I have bolded the relevant passages showing that Sotomayor was speaking about the fact that background does make a difference, and that a Latina woman will have an understanding of racism that a white man does not simply out of personal experience. It's interesting to note, however, that she also concludes white men can and have been empathetic enough to make good decisions regardless.

In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.

It is also interesting to note that when Justice Thomas was nominated, John Yoo, (yes, that Yoo what wrote them really bad legal opinions), defended Thomas on identical grounds

Yoo touted the unique perspective that he said Thomas brings to the bench. Yoo wrote that Thomas "is a black man with a much greater range of personal experience than most of the upper-class liberals who take potshots at him" and argued that Thomas' work on the court has been influenced by his understanding of the less fortunate acquired through personal experience.

A letter to Norris

2009-05-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

My small town has two papers, and whilst I cartoon for the Telegraph, I sometimes write letters to the editor to submit to the other one. The following is just such a beast:

Norris Rose’s letter decrying the Obama administration’s much needed housecleaning is representative of many letters recently posted. Kudos to Norris for making rational assertions, but I respectfully disagree with everything he said.

Factually, Rose’s arguments are classic disinformation. The Heritage Foundation is a recognized partisan institution. Rose’s reliance on this source colors his entire letter. IE: The Administration has indeed cut 1.4 billion from missile defense, but the programs cut are expensive duds. R&D into rogue missile threats is being continued, and the cuts being made are on consultation and recommendation from Secretary Gates and the Joint Chiefs. Obama is keeping his promise to trim the fat from government, something I would have thought conservatives approved of.

Some more inconvenient facts for Rose:

• While fighting is sometimes unavoidable, history shows that talking to despots actually has averted disaster: witness the Cuban Missile Crisis.

• Fannie May and Freddie Mac’s bad loans did not cause the meltdown. Only around 1 of 4 defaulted loans originated with those companies.

• The Cap and Trade plan will tax energy companies around $366 billion a year, not $644 trillion. Estimated cost per consumer by 2015 is $7.00 per month. For that, we begin mitigating global warming, encourage conservation, and produce new jobs in a green economy.

• Granting citizenship to illegal immigrants will generate $66 billion in taxes oven ten years, while costing us $54 billion in welfare, a net gain.

• Obama has “assumed control” over some banks because they were insolvent. The FDIC “assumes control” over smaller bankrupt institutions in the same way, then sells them back to the private sector.

• We are suffering an economic crisis due to systemic deregulation over 30 years of GOP philosophical dominance. Capitalism stays healthy only if kept on a reasonable leash.

I implore Rose to retire his ideological blinders and realize government is not a boogie man. Government is us, and it is only as good as we make it. Obama is not perfect, but his election gave us an opportunity to build a better future. That is what a clear majority voted for in 2008, and that is what we are starting to get. Why not help out? There is much to do.

Sub-prime 101

2009-05-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

I'm on a kick to write about revisionism.

Last week's post about FDR got me thinking and researching another popular meme, specifically that the Sub-prime crisis is primarily the fault of Democrats. This theory is based the belief that the Community Reinvestment Act, (CRA), enacted in 1977 and amended by Bill Clinton in the 90's, required the quasi-federal lending institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make bad loans to unqualified poor folks which resulted in the current crisis.

While this is a gross simplification of a complicated series of events, it is true that there were bad loans were made, and as a result, both institutions have had to be bailed out by the US government.

That said, there are three basic distortions here:

1. Confusing pressure from Democrats, who clearly wanted an expansion of loans to the poor, with the bad decisions made by the CEO's of Fannie and Freddie(conservative Republicans appointed by President Bush, by the way.) The CEO's fell victim to the same greed-fueled gold-rush mentality that wrecked everyone else. In order to make a lot of money, they purged whistle-blowers, relaxed regulatory standards, and bought up bad, "Alt A" loans. Now, while this activity contributed to the overall sub-prime crash, it was not the "match that lit the subprime crisis", as Senator the economy is healthy McCain proclaimed during the 2008 election. Fannie and Freddy were more like ships steered into a hurricane by greedy Ahabs riding a wave of unethical profiteering. And where are the roots of such activity found? Why, in conservative anti-regulatory ideology.

2. Bad loans made by the Fannie and Freddie caused the crisis. In actuality, 80% of the subprime loans were made by institutions NOT regulated by the Community Reinvestment Act. In other words, only about one out of four bad loans originated with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

3. Democrats killed off the 2005 Federal Housing Reform Act, a bill that if passed, would have prevented the whole meltdown hoohah. The bill died in the majority Republican Senate, despite passing the House, 331 to 90. It perished from a the lack of an effective Senate champion. Mostly likely this was due to a troika of hostility to the bill from the Bush Administration, the Fed, and the Treasury, who saw privatization as the only solution. Add staunch resistance from the minority Dems who thought they were defending the poor, and the bill was DOA.

So are the D's to blame for anything? Sure- besides congressional Democrats doing their best doe-eyed naive doofus impressions about what was actually happing over on the decks of HMS Frannie and Freddie, Bill Clinton, being the great triangulator that he is, signed into law the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. This rather odious piece of Republican legislation is most often blamed for allowing the spiral of deregulation that allowed financial organizations from Banks to Insurance Companies swap tens of trillions of dollars worth of transactions in the dark, and grow "too big to fail." Of course, ol Bubba is nowhere near ready to admit he messed up, but in all fairness, the national tide was running pretty strongly against him on that one.

A careful reader will note that far from being a Democratic Party pooch-screwing, the whole Sub-Prime crisis emerges from almost thirty years of ideologically fueled deregulatory practices, including defanging the folks who were supposed to be watching the store. And deregulation, that same reader may note, is a tune the GOP cats love to riff on.

Revisionism and FDR

2009-04-30T12:19:00.000-07:00

Recently, a revisionist meme has sprung up in the pundit community claiming that FDR-era New Deal programs not only failed to lift America out of the great depression, but actually prolonged it or even made it worse. Of all the sillyness being thrown against Obama's wall, this one wins the cupie for being at the same time most obviously wrong and most predictably asserted.

The Great Depression ran from 1929-1941-ish in the US, and President Franklin Roosevelt was in office for most of it. FDR instituted a series of big spending "stimulus" programs in order to revive the economy. The programs were collectively known as the New Deal. Hence, the logic goes, if the New Deal was a dud, so is Obama's "new" New Deal.

Problem is that the New Deal actually worked pretty well. Economic figures vary depending on source, but most more or less agree that New Deal programs had a tremendous positive effect on employment, the GDP, manufacturing, and private investment, returning levels either close to or surpassing pre-crash numbers by 1941, when the US entered WWII. The war definitely put a cherry on the recovery, and powered the launch of the economic juggernaut the US would become, but it was not the Depression-buster some have anointed it.

If there was any need to further kick the coffin lid down on this one, we could inspect the mini-recession of 1937. From 1933 to 1936, Roosevelt was full speed ahead on stimulus programs, and the economy responded dramatically to the positive. Then, FDR began to listen to some of his more partisan advisors, and slashed stimulus spending. The economy tanked once more. As soon as he reversed course and instituted new spending- hey presto, the economy shot up again. That there's a direct cause-and-effect thingy. But don't take it from me. That economist guy Krugman said it, and he got a Noble for knowing about such things.

Lastly, we could ask some experts in economics and history. A 1995 survey from Economic History Services asked, "Taken as a whole, government polices of the New Deal served to lengthen and deepen the Great Depression." 27% of economist surveyed agreed, and 51% said "you be smoking something." The economic historian response was even more revealing: only 6% agreed. 74% began gravesite pre-rolling in anticipation of being offed by revisionist questioning, and the remaining 20% fence-sat themselves into irrelevancy.

So where does this rather noxiously perennial claim of a market-busting, capitalism-tanking, red-loving FDR come from? Well, strangely enough, from the hard right, who have never really gotten over the fact that spending money on poor people and infrastructure actually makes the country work better. Specifically, a 2007 book by Amity Shlaes, a few university professors (I thought those guys were all liberal kool-aid drinkers. Who knew?), assorted economists, and that great bastion of fair balancing, Fox News, are the key offenders.

Fox needs no real debunking because they got their info from the other sources I mentioned. Shlaes book, the professors, and most of the other economists gripes are founded on cherry-picked statistics, and have been thoroughly discredited on those grounds. As much as I hate to lay down a big old url, if you want more detail on this, go see www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008125224/fox-news-historians-pretty-much-agree-fdr-prolonged-great-depression. There, you will satisfy your every wonkish desire.

Opportunistic revisionism like this oozes out of think tanks from both sides of the aisle on a regular schedule, depending on who's in power. That said, the current spate of rewrites, led mostly by the angry teabag fringe, is particularly damaging to the GOP. Debating the justification for spanking Bill Clinton is one thing, but balls-out nonsense, such as slinging mud at settled history from 80 years ago, or Bill O'Rielly's recent claim that Nixon never met Mao Zedong, (they were photographed shaking hands, and yes, ol' Tricky was smiling-), is just further proof that the GOP is allowing radicals to dictate their policy.

That's not good.

Principled opposition is key to a healthy democracy, and ideological revisionism of documented facts is the political equivalent of Swine Flu. Fortunately the vaccine is available: it's called a history book.

Welcome

2009-04-30T12:14:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the blog. My posts will be sporadic, so please feel free to subscribe for updates. I'm happy to host reasonable people, but abuse of myself or other posters is unwelcome and uncool, so please don't do it. My hope is that this space can be used for information and understanding, spiced with a bit of tough but respectful debate. Thanks for checking it out.