Jim, Mika, and Baby makes three

OK - I love being a working mom and I love politics, so this video just tickled me. I've held conference calls with one finger on the mute button and a baby in the other arm. I've had meetings with ad reps with a baby in my lap. I've come in on my day off with a kid, a snack, and a portable DVD player. Hey, modern moms! This is us!

I can't help it. I love this.

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"Rumored lesbian" Hagen back at Justice

More from the "Undoing the Damage" front. Today, NPR's Ari Shapiro filed this story:

On Monday, the Justice Department undid a small part of the damage that top officials caused in a scandal of politicized hiring and firing during the Bush administration. The department rehired an attorney who was improperly removed from her job because she was rumored to be a lesbian.

NPR first broke the story of Leslie Hagen's dismissal last April, and the Justice Department's inspector general later corroborated the report. Now, Hagen has returned to her post at the department's Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.

In 2006, Hagen was the liaison between the main Justice Department and the U.S. Attorneys' committee on Native American affairs. The chairman of that committee, Tom Heffelfinger, described Hagen to NPR last year as "the best qualified person in the nation to fill that job." Hagen's performance evaluations had the highest possible ratings — "outstanding" in each of five categories.

The job came up for renewal every year. After the first year, Hagen was surprised to hear that she would have to move on.

As NPR reported in April, a top aide to the attorney general had heard a rumor that Hagen was a lesbian. Discrimination based on sexual orientation is against Justice Department rules. But Monica Goodling, senior counsel to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, had Hagen removed from her job anyway.

That was more than a year ago. The inspector general eventually confirmed the NPR report and added new details, saying Goodling not only ousted Hagen but also blocked Hagen from getting other Justice Department jobs she was qualified for.

Last year, the Justice Department posted Hagen's old job again. The department conducted a national search. Applications came in from around the country. After several rounds of interviews, Hagen eventually won the job.

The paperwork makes it official as of Monday, Feb. 2. Hagen now has her old position back, but this time it's a little different. Her contract no longer comes up for renewal every year. Now, the job is permanent.

It is not a perfectly happy ending for Hagen. Nobody official from the department ever apologized to her for what happened. She still owes thousands of dollars in attorney fees, and the Justice Department has refused to pay those bills.

That was the department's position under the Bush administration, anyway. Hagen's attorney says her client hopes the new attorney general will take a different view.

Why special elections are not much better

You know, I'm starting to have a geriatric crush on Ed Rendell. The Governor of Pennsylvania just knows politics like the back of his hand and is able to tell it like it is.

In the wake of the human circuses that have been the appointments of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's Senate seats, Sen. Russ Feingold (another personal fav) has proposed legislation that would mandate special elections to fill replacement Senate seats, not gubernatorial appointments. Seems like SUCH a great idea right? Let the PEOPLE decide!

Wrong, says Gov. Rendell. He explained on MSNBC that, in actuality, the political parties would be choosing the replacement. There would not be time for open primaries in these cases, so the state GOP would choose one candidate, and the state Democratic party would choose one candidate. In a state like New York, that is all but assuring the Democratic party is choosing your next Senator. And does that sound much better to you?

More on the "Bush kept us safe" meme.

I just needed to share this blurb from The Brad Blog, commenting on the current assertion that "Bush kept us safe". I was doing the math in my head the other day, and I couldn't figure out how someone who was responsible for so much war death could be seen as "keeping us safe".

Counting only the dead (and only the American dead, in this case, since estimates of violent Iraqi civilian fatalities during the war are currently estimated to be anywhere from a conservative 150,000 to more than 1,000,000) that totals 4,245 Americans killed by terrorists, or in optional conflicts with terrorists, since 9/11.

"Bush kept us safe"?

You can read the full text here. Brad has some other figures that put the whole argument into stark perspective.

A human horror that should not be ignored: rape in Congo

This story is so difficult to listen to, but chalk this up to something we should all face periodically: the systematic rape of women and children as a form or warfare.

This story on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday had my husband and I dumbfounded, quiet, and profoundly sad this weekend. In it, Scott Simon interviews the playwright Eve Ensler and Dr. Denis Mukwege, "the founder of a hospital in Congo that's helping victims of rape and mutilation":

Mukwege, a gynecologist, founded the Panzi hospital in the Congo — a place where victims can find treatment and counseling. He's been honored by the United Nations for his humanitarian work there.

Honored may be the most mild way one should regard Dr. Mukwege. The things he describes are tragic and outraging and remind us all that we can and should - we MUST - do more.

GOP: the party of Failure and "Can't"

You'd think rank-and-file Republicans would be jumping ship like rats at this point. I'm struck by the severity of the GOP's ideological bankruptcy. Party leaders an Conservative thinkers appear, in the last few weeks, to be embracing an identity as the party of Failure and the party of "Can't".

First, there is the notion that the GOP's solution to the drumming they received in the last election is to wait for the Dems to fail. As George Will plainly said on ABC's This Week, they wait for failure on the part of the other party. In order to... What, exactly? Get back some votes? When the youth vote broke by 30 or more votes for Barack Obama, that hardly seems like the path to a bright future. So your plan for resurgence is "wait for the other guy to fail"? That's really all they've got?

Next, the "Can't Do" party. Apparently, all Repubs can say to any proposed changes in this country is "No We Can't". I am waiting to hear a good reason why we "can't" put GitMo prisoners in to American supermax prisons. (I'm talking to you, Sen, Kit Bond, R-MO.) If its good enough for Sirhan Sirhan, it's sure as hell good enough for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, no? Also, we "can't" stop using torture, "can't" build the economy in any way other than tax-breaks-to-corporations and -the-wealthy, and "can't" come up with an alternative to free-market health care.

I know I'm not the only person in this country sick to death of "can't". How is this a path to the future for the GOP? Don't get me wrong. I'm totally happy to watch the party pursue this road to nowhere. As happy as I am to let them pick Sarah Palin as their candidate for 2012. Be my guest, GOP!

Don't Repubs at least pretend to think that positive ideology and plans for the future of this country matter to people? Or have they resigned themselves to be the party of the curmudgeonly and hateful (see Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and the musical preferences of Chip Saltsman)?

Who's been attacked in the last 7 years?

Ugh. If I have to hear one more person try to stick up for the legacy of the Bush Administration with this tired argument one more time, I may explode: "But you HAVE to admit, we haven't been attacked in the last seven years!"

As my sainted grandmother used to say, BULL. Attacked in the last seven years:

• Our civil liberties
• The Genenva Conventions
• Reproductive rights
• Stem-cell research
• The public school system
  
• Science
• The United Nations
• The environment
• Freedom of Information
• Government accountability
• Truth
• The English language

What did I miss?

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

Oh what a night.

courtesy bob_weaver @ DemocraticUnderground.com

Obama, by Sorkin

If you thought that the Obama campaign occasionally sounded like it was scripted by Aaron Sorkin, this is for you:

Do you want a middle-class tax cut?

If you know me (and I don't flatter myself: you probably only read this blog if you know me), then you are middle class, or even "working class" (read: the verbotten words "lower class").

Do you want a tax cut?

See, here's the thing: I would take a tax cut, but I don't need a tax cut. If the nation is in such dire financial straights, I'll give up my tax cut to ease the deficit and still spend money. After all, we have a steady income: I can still shop. And the tax cut wouldn't represent enough money for me to buy a new car or anything. It would amount to - what? - $100 a month? What are we talking about here?

The tax cut aspect of the Obama Administration's proposed economic stimulus package is pretty fuzzy - as all tax cut plans seem to be - and is steeped in politics from both sides of the aisle. Personally, I'm more interested in seeing significant infrastructure spending. I've been bitching about that forever. But Professor Krugman makes a good arguement in yesterday's Times:

...there’s a problem with a public-investment-only stimulus plan, namely timing. We need stimulus fast, and there’s a limited supply of “shovel-ready” projects that can be started soon enough to deliver an economic boost any time soon. You can bulk up stimulus through other forms of spending, mainly aid to Americans in distress — unemployment benefits, food stamps, etc.. And you can also provide aid to state and local governments so that they don’t have to cut spending — avoiding anti-stimulus is a fast way to achieve net stimulus. But everything I’ve heard says that even with all these things it’s hard to come up with enough spending to provide all the aid the economy needs in 2009.

What this says is that there’s a reasonable economic case for including a significant amount of tax cuts in the package, mainly in year one.

I don't know about that. Because we need as much economic stimulus as we can get, you think a middle class tax cut that will not be spent, but saved, is something we HAVE to do? I'm not convinced.

By the way, you are still OBLIGED to read Krugman as long as this financial crisis persists. If you haven't, DO IT.

As the situation in Gaza deteriorates further...

I suspect that, in the years to come, Americans' understanding of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians will become even murkier. The fact of the matter is that most Americans do not understand the roots of the conflict now, and more and more Americans fail to cower when they're called anti-Semitic for questioning Israel's actions against Hamas and Fatah. That dog doesn't hunt anymore.

Most Americans 40 years of age or younger do not see Jewishness as a negative. Like our parents' generation, we don't see the old prejudices and they are not the motivation for our political/social/global perspective. Think of this: in the movie It's a Wonderful Life, curmudgeonly Mr. Potter sneers at George Bailey's efforts to help "a lot of garlic eaters". Do you know what that means? If you're my age (mid-30s), you'd have to know something about turn-of-the-century immigration statistics, geography, and frankly cooking to understand that comment. Certainly if my parents understood it they did not subscribe to it. And the comment drifts completely by my own generation.

So here we are, the new generation of middle America, who doesn't quite understand why we are supposed to support Israel without question or discussion. That isn't going to go away. I don't think its very difficult to present an argument to my generation about why Israel needs our support. I just don't think we're going to continue to offer Israel our unqualified support.

That said, Glenn Greenwald today talks about the ground situation in Gaza, points out that Israel is still unconstitutionally barring journalists from entering Gaza, and shares his experience having a rational discussion about the conflict with an irrational commentator.

Claiborne Pell, father of the Pell Grant, dies

As someone who's funded a college education without, and then with, the Pell Grant, I can say this man did a very wonderful thing. From Salon.com:

Former Rhode Island Sen. Claiborne Pell died Thursday. Pell, who retired in 1997 after more than 30 years in the Senate, was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 1994. He was 90.

A liberal Democrat who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Pell was, among his other accomplishments, also the Senate's chief sponsor of the legislation that created the National Endowment for the Arts as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities. But he's best known for the college financial aid program that bears his name, the Pell Grants. The Associated Press notes in its obituary that the Senator always said the grants were his greatest achievement.

In a statement, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who served with Pell, said, "Chairman Pell was a mentor to me and one of our nation's most important voices in foreign policy for over 30 years. He was a leader in the effort to reduce the size of the world's nuclear arsenal and to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Few Senators have done more to expand opportunity in America. Because of Senator Pell and the Pell Grant, the doors of college have been opened to millions of Americans -- and will continue to be opened to millions more. That is a legacy that will live on for generations to come."

― Alex Koppelman

Blagojevich appointment press conference chaos

Wow. The political theatre that is Rod Blagojevich. The Illinois Governor just held his press conference to announce that he will appoint former State Attorney General Roland Burris to fill Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat.

Blagojevich has incredible chuztpah. He spoke at that podium as though he were a celebrity, not notoriously corrupt. The press went NUTS questioning poor Burris and the Governor.

Then, out of nowhere, Burris says he sees Rep. Bobby Rush in the crowd and Rush wades through the crowd to make an impromptu endorsement of Burris. I can only imagine that Blagojevich hopes that creating more circus will give him more breathing room. Its an amazing soap opera he's made of the office.

UPDATE: Wow. The evening news shows are ravenously chasing their tails on this spectacle. Host: "Can Rod Blagojevich DO this???" Pundit A: "Look, Burris is a DECENT GUY!!" Host: "Maybe so but, Pundit B, can Blagojevich DO this???" Pundit B: "They've injected race into the issue!!" Lots of exclamation. Lots.

Putting real faces on the Madoff scandal

A lot of the Wall Street meltdown seems miles away, especially if you have a 401k account that you don't intend to touch for 40 or so years. Or if you don't have a 401k at all.

But it is interesting to put some meaningful faces on the losses suffered by some of the Madoff investors. Per Smart Money, here are some of the standouts:

Entity: Support Organization for the Madison Cultural Arts District
Exposure: $18 million invested with Fairfield Greenwich until September
Date of disclosure: Dec. 19
Notes: A spokesman for the Overture Center in Madison, Wis., built with SOMCAD funds, said, "Speculation that SOMCAD could be on the hook is not outlandish."


Entity: JEHT Foundation
Exposure: n/a
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: The foundation stopped all grant-making and plans to shut down at the end of January. Its major donors had essentially all their money invested with the Madoff firm. Grant recipients had included Human Rights First and the Michigan Department of Corrections, Make Voting Work and theInnocence Project.

Entity: Wunderkinder Foundation
Exposure: Steven Spielberg confirmed the foundation sustained losses.
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
(more on this here)

And from People.com, it looks as though celebrity couple Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgewick have also lost substantial amounts of money. I wonder how much a couple of Golden Globe noms are worth.

A peak at a career in politics

Been laid off? Lacking job security? It really seems like the best move for you is to get into politics.

There is apparently nothing you can do to ruin your reputation permanently. And the perks? Even if you're not the elected official, they're apparently FANTASTIC. Take a look at these perks received by former Republican aid and Abramoff payola recipient Trevor Blackann:

- a free trip to Game 1 of the 2003 World Series in New York.
- airline travel to and from New York City.
- a ticket to the game.
- admission to, and entertainment at, a "gentleman's club" for the married aide.
- one-night accommodations in an "upscale" hotel.
- transportation in a chauffeured SUV.
- a souvenir baseball jersey.
- free meals and drinks.

All that just for getting his boss, Missouri Rep. Kit Bond, to write a letter of support for a guy trying to get an appointment to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Beats the hell out of the company party you just went to, eh?

(Tip of the hat to Rob on this one.)

Krugman, the economic touchstone

If you're like me, you try to follow the news about the economy, digest it, wrap your head around it, all in real time. But its the economy and you ain't THAT bright so eventually you start lagging behind. Admit it.

When you find yourself swirling, lost in that economic punchbowl of confusion, I invite you to read Paul Krugman, if you don't already. His interview on Salon.com on Friday was one of those great opportunities to catch up. Some choice thoughts on the idea du jour that we should just let these failing businesses fail:

There's kind of a weird double-think involved in arguments that the slump should be allowed to follow its natural course. It's true that classical economics says that we should let market forces do their work; but classical economics also says that severe recessions can't happen [my emphasis]. This idea that we must not intervene is based on a worldview that is refuted by the very fact that the economy is in the mess it's in.

The truth about blogging

The truth about terrorists

My sentiments exactly.

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Barack Obama Interview
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Liberal hand-wringing over Obama appointments

I am a liberal progressive sushi-eating anti-war Democrat and I like Barack Obama's appointments to-date.

There. I needed it stated somewhere.

Am I the only self-described progressive who is OK with the Obama-admin-to-be? I keep hearing the commentariate talk about how all of us are just groaning with each new nomination. Are you groaning? Are you wailing about how Obama is abandoning the movement? Are you lamenting that Obama is ignoring the progressive MANDATE that his election proves?

If you are, I think A) you're a little bit full of crap, and B) you do not speak for me.

Yes, Barack Obama's election was a rejection of the Bush administration. It does not follow that his election is an embrace of progressive ideology. There are not two choices: Bush or Progressive. In this election, there was Bush and Other. The country chose Other.

Certainly the string of Democratic victories (can two cycles be called a "string of victories"?) can be seen as a continuing rejection of Bush. But what exactly about Bush are the voters rejecting? Fundamentalism in government? Neoconservativism? Free-market capitalism?

See, I've been hearing the punditocracy speaking for Progressives. They say that we say that Obama's election means that voters reject all of it. I think that's dumb.

Some voters are rejecting capitalism without regulation. Not capitalism in toto.

Some voters are rejecting evangelical ideology in place of policy. Not religion in government.

Some voters are rejecting cowboy interventionist policy. They've not become peaceniks.

Barack Obama and John McCain became the nominees of their respective parties because they promised to move away from partisan politics. They did not promise to reverse the polarity of the current brand of partisanship in Washington. Obama is making sense-based nominations. (Imagine: nominating an Ambassador to the UN who thinks it is a relevant body!) He is not balancing one Republican for every Democrat.

In general, I'm happy and comfortable and comforted by the decisions the President-Elect is making.

And while we're at it, let us remember that the man isn't actually President yet. Let's refrain from piling on what we think he is going to do. Please?

New host chosen for Meet the Press

The Huffington Post is reporting that NBC has chosen David Gregory to be the new host of Meet the Press. Incredibly disappointing decision.

I first observed David Gregory in his role as a bland substitute for Matt Lauer on the Today show and have watched him over the course of this election season. His show Race to the White House (now dubbed 1600) was only a temporary relief from Tucker Carlson's hour-long indulgence in self-promotion. In it, Gregory continued to demonstrate his bland demeanor. His occasional flashes of aggression seemed forced, arbitrary, and intended to add sizzle, not value.

Now, despite the (deserved) criticism that Tim Russert engendered from progressives for dropping the ball in the run up to the war, I loved to watch the man . It wasn't that Russert was especially penetrating in his interviews. While obviously well-studied, Russert would never engage in the sort of penetrating journalism that could change the narrative his guests were promoting. Rather, the joy in watching Tim Russert's Meet the Press was in watching a man who clearly LOVED history and politics and America draw out the story of the day and put it into some context. You knew that Russert had that Capraesque sense of patriotism that was informed by education, worldliness and a passionate love of the process. This new appointment suggests that David Gregory is remotely capable of filling those shoes. He is not.

It will be interesting to see if MSNBC replaces Gregory as host of 1600. Mika Brzezninski, the oft-bulldozed sidekick of Morning Joe, has stepped in frequently as a fill in host for Gregory. I like her, though she clearly needs to overcome an aw-sucks persona whose primary goal is apparently to keep her guests from fighting or saying anything too extreme. It comes off as unintelligent and a matronly cliche. She can do better in the host role. Lets hope she delivers, and takes some notes from Rachel Maddow.