OlsonOnline

UPDATE: CNN's Jack Cafferty says Bush 'pardons' himself!

Maybe CNN is trying to keep up with MSNBC and Keith Olbermann's Countdown, which Andrew Kaza tells me is "... the only show on MSNBC with any kind of audience growth in the past year."

That would explain this anti-Bush rant from Wolf Blitzer's "question man", Jack Cafferty.

Or maybe Caferty just doesn't like torture, illegal detention, and the pushover legislative branch of government, which apparently includes more than a handful of spineless Democratic Senators.

Carla calls out Civiletti! Here's my response

Carla at Loaded Orygun contends that her stubborn opposition to the campaign finance reform initiatives --Measures 46 and 47-- is validated by the exhaustive Money in Politics Research Action Report. 

I respectfully disagree.

I've read both Measures 46 and 47 and the lengthy analysis of the two by Money in Politics.  I've also read all  142 comments on Carla's original post.  While I'm no lawyer, I have to agree with Sal Peralta's assessment in a comment on the current post:

"Contrary to what Carla's title suggests, it's an even-handed assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of Measures 46 and 47."

In my analysis, what it comes down to is the constitutionality of Measure 47's limits on invdividual independent expenditures --think Swift Boat ads, which torpedoed John Kerry's Presidential bid.  Here's what the Money in Politics report says:

"This limit, as well as bans on independent expenditures from corporate and union treasury dollars, is of interest to campaign finance reform proponents because independent  expenditures are seen as a frustrating way to get around contribution limits. ... Nevertheless, it is highly likely that due to the federal First Amendment, Measure 47’s limit on the rights of individuals to make independent expenditures will be ruled unconstitutional."

And that, according to Carla and other opponents of the measure, will open the floodgates to rich conservatives like Loren Parks to back reactionary candidates like Kevin Mannix, while unions and progressive advocacy groups will still be hamstrung by Measure 47's stringent limits. 

That's nothing more than speculation.  As Peralta says, it's not a "given" that [Meek's] argument "will fail in Federal Court."

Perhaps the most important conclusion of the report is that contribution limits are necessary for Carla's favored solution, public financing of elections.  Money in Politics seems to be saying that Measure 47 is a step in the right direction at the very least. 

But how long can we wait?  If Wayne Scott keeps flying over to Hawaii to collect checks for $20 grand from beer and wine merchants, he'll be entrenched in the legislature forever.

Unless he decides to run for Governor.

Who you gonna "support and defend"? The Constitution, or the President?

Good post about the Senate's shameless assault yesterday on habeas corpus, the Constitution, and the Magna Carta over at Loaded Orygun. 

What Torrid doesn't mention is the legislation's retroactive exoneration of Bush and friends for crimes against humanity and violations of the Geneva Conventions:

"At the same time, the bill immunizes U.S. officials from prosecution for cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees captured before the end of last year."

Nor does he mention Lindsay Graham's rationale for caving to White House demands:

"Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who helped draft the legislation during negotiations with the White House, said the measure set up a system for treating detainees that the nation can be proud of. He said the goal 'is to render justice to the terrorists, even though they will not render justice to us'." ...

"I don't believe judges should be making military decisions in a time of war."

Thom Hartmann summed up the whole sordid matter concisely last Monday"

"It was a contest between protecting the President and protecting the Constitution."

Yesterday, in violation of their oath of office, 65 Senators from both parties voted to "support and defend" not the Constitution, but the President. 

Keep that in mind come November. 

Saxton's school board record --animated!

Here's the animated version of Ron Saxton's school board legacy, courtesy of Saxton Watch.

Cute.  Too bad it doesn't hang Ben Canada around Saxton's neck.

Two questions: How long before MSNBC fires Keith Olbermann? And, why do we have SIXTEEN national intelligence agencies?

How much longer can Keith Olbermann's "jihad" against George W. Bush go unpunished by his corporate employers?   The question is when, not if, Olbermann will be sacked by MSNBC.

Even by my Bush-belittling standards, Olbermann's nightly tirades against our would-be President, although welcome and wonderfully refreshing, are strangely unsettling.  I have to admit --they make me nervous!

Unless ... unless public opinion has turned decisively against the poseur* who passes for our national and duly "elected" leader.  Even corporations, whose sole raison d'etre is to amass money,  must yield to the will of the people, their customers, when those people are beyond the point of manipulation.  Perhaps that point has been reached.

It's a tough call for the corporate elite.  Bush has cut their taxes, reduced their regulations, allowed their lobbyists to write legislation --in short, he's made them one hell of a lot richer and more powerful.  He has essentially created a fascist** paradise.

Perhaps the tipping point has been reached.  We'll know by the fate of Keith Olbermann. Will he become another Phil Donahue?

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The second  question about the sheer number of separate national intelligence agencies has, to my knowledge, gone unasked, overshadowed by the dispute over Iraq, and Bush's rants about press leaks.  Until recently, I thought, along with lots of other fairly knowledgable people, that the CIA was it, the big kahuna of spy agencies.

Now, a lot of people are aware of the existence of the NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.  But thirteen others?   I thought we were supposed to be consolidating our spies, in the wake of 9/11, under something called the Director of National Intelligence.  The idea was to simplify and streamline foreign intelligence.  I don't know how that can be done with sixteen competing --and probably squabbling-- groups of spies, each with an agenda of its own. 

Ah well.  Let the infighting begin.  Or continue.

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*poseur - a person who attempts to impress others by assuming or affecting a manner, degree of elegance, sentiment, etc., other than his or her true one.

**fascism - read this post

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The O steps up: Saxton, lobbyists, and habeas corpus

A day late and a dollar short perhaps, but today the Oregonian chimed in on the Ron Saxton school choice mini-scandal reported in yesterday's Tribune.

Loaded Orygun coincidentally has an interesting post on Saxton and the Oregonian, too, but this one is about the scant support Saxton is getting from letter writers to the O.  Make that no support.  Of the 708 letters the O received last week, none supported Saxton.

Mary Starrett, the "true" conservative alternative to Saxton, got two on Sunday alone.

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The Oregonian did break a good story on the lobbying shenanigans of three prominent Oregon Repubican legislators, including the dim-witted Derrick Kitts.  Kitts excused his failure to report his all expenses paid trip to Hawaii this way:

" 'I asked (Romain) specifically at the time: Do I have to report this?' Kitts said Tuesday. 'And he said no,' Kitts said. 'It wasn't like I was an ostrich and didn't even ask the question.' "

Maybe Kitts had his head stuck someplace else, equally dark.

The issue with these lobbying boondoggles is not, as Wayne Scott blustered, whether his vote is "for sale".   It's accepting an "award" for already voting the way the lobbyist --in this case the Oregon Beer and Wine Distributors Association-- wants you to vote.  The proof is in the pudding.  Oregon has among the lowest taxes in the nation on booze.

Oregon has lousy and ineffective regulations on lobbying (as well as no limits on campaign donations.)   The Center for Public Integrity gave Oregon an 'F' in 2001 for it's lobbying laws.  And in its recent report praising 24 states for outdoing the feds on lobby reform, Oregon didn't make the list.  Oregon, the report says,  has made no "reported  changes" in its lobbying laws since 2003.

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And then there's David Sarasohn's column about the "compromise" the Bush Administration worked out with the Senate over prisoner detention and the denial of the right to habeas corpus:

"Not satisfied with cutting up the Constitution, the administration is now mangling the Magna Carta."

For those of you who haven't been paying close attention (like me), the so-callled  "compromise" is worse than it looks:

"So, the new compromise not only excludes unlawful combatants from habeas corpus but also considerably expands the people who could qualify as unlawful combatants -- and subject to imprisonment at the pleasure of the president."

Like American citizens. 

Good column, David Sarasohn.  Maybe your next will call for Bush's impeachment.

The Trib scores again: Ron Saxton and school choice

Jennifer Anderson's front page piece on Ron Saxton in today's edition reminds me why I used to eagerly look forward to picking up the latest copy of the the Portland Tribune every Tuesday and Friday. 

Lately I've been disappointed with the Trib's predictable lack of substance.  I mean, the Tribune, like Willamette Week, is supposed to an alternative to the Oregonian (the B'oregonian to some), not a pale imitation.

Maybe it's just me, but Anderson's last two efforts have been first rate, shedding some much needed light on the local education scene.  As with any news story, however, you have to read between the lines to really understand what's happening with the Portland Public School district.

First, today's story is not just about Ron Saxton, a rich guy running for Governor who finagled a way to get his son into Lincoln High School.  Not really.  It's about school choice and the inequities it promotes.  Not just between wealthy and privileged individuals, like Saxton on the one hand, and everybody else on the other, but the two-tiered school system choice inevitably creates.

The key sentence in the article is this:

"The issue is particularly heated today, in the midst of concerns about the gap between rich schools and poor schools, and the search for balance between school choice and neighborhood schools."

Unless choice is centralized and limited to secondary schools, as it is in Beaverton, I don't see how choice and neighborhood schools can ever peacefully coexist.  As I wrote earlier,

"I look at it like this: you can either have strong neighborhood schools OR you can have a market-based school choice program. But the two, by definition, cannot coexist."

Then, the implications in the article are important to note.  Martin Gonzalez, whom I supported for school board in 2003 over David Wynde, sees no "...problem with using the system to seek the best educational option for a child."  But how do we know that Lincoln is a "better educational option" than other Portland high schools?

We don't, unless you believe in the wisdom of test scores.  Aside from its IB program --overrated, but that's a different post-- what we know about Lincoln is that it has good student demographics.  We know nothing about the educational experience at Lincoln, or any other school for that matter, because we make no effort to measure it. It makes  no sense, therefore, to talk about "better educational options."

If the district had the will, it could provide "good educational options" at all Portland schools.  And provide a quality education to all Portland students, rich or poor.

That's what I take from the article. 

Progressives "oppose" Measure 46 and 47? Not from what I've read!

Let me amend the headline on this Blue Oregon post.  While some progressives may oppose Measures 46 and 47, many do not.  I for one am inclined to vote yes on the two campaign finance reform measures. 

Nothing in Carla's Loaded Orygun post --"Why Measures 46 & 47 Suck"-- has convinced me otherwise.  In fact, the preponderance of comments on the post, presumably from "progressive" voters, are in support of the two measures. 

Tom Civiletti's correction of Carla's claim that M47 "fails to ... place restrictions on individual donors" is typical of the overall response to the post:

"The arguments against the Fair Elections measures are a lot like Bush administrations arguments for invading and occupying Iraq: they are baseless and oft repeated.

"If Carla had read Measure 47, she would have found that there are limits on what individuals can give to various committees and in aggregate, limits on what individuals can spend on independent expenditure campaigns, and limits on what individuals can spend on their own campaigns."

The gist of the comment thread is that opponents of Measure 47 should read the text of the initiative  before dismissing it as "this mess" or as an opening for the "out of state wealthy".  And that they should cite the actual language of its provisions when voicing their objections. 

As I wrote in an earlier post, I won't be convinced to vote no on campaign finance reform on the mere "possibility" that some of its provisions will be thrown out by the courts.

I do agree, however, that true reform would involve publicly financed elections.  But that's not on the ballot, nor is it likely to be in the foreseeable future.

More Karen Armstrong: Our "Oedipus complex"

In this earlier piece for the Guardian, Armstrong applies the Sophoclean version of the Oedipus story to current problems in foreign policy and religion:

"Despite his reputation for vision (oidos), Oedipus had been blind to basic realities of his identity. All his life, he had tried to act rightly and find the truth, but it eluded him and, through no fault of his, he had brought pestilence upon his city."

Oedipus was too sure of himself, in other words, like many of our political and religious leaders today. 

Like Sophocles, Armstrong urges us to seek "alternative" narratives:

"But Sophocles's Oedipus story reminds us that there was never a single version of a myth. As we listen to the antithetical mythologies that tear our world apart, we need to be receptive to the counter-narrative that opposes our point of view and expresses the 'other' perspective."

It's doubtful that George W. Bush --or Osama bin Laden-- will rise to Oedipal awareness. It's unlikely that either will "gouge out" his eyes when they discover how wrong they have been, how "blind" they have been to  other perspectives.   

And therein lies the problem.  In politics, we revere resolve, no matter how simple-minded.  To his admirers --35 to 40 percent of voters-- Bush is a strong leader for the very qualities which inevitably lead to tragic ends.  Like Oedipus, Bush's blind pursuit of his vision of justice will bring --indeed has brung--"pestilence" upon the world.

The real tragedy is that Bush, unlike Oedipus, will never become a tragic hero.

Mary Starrett a spoiler?

Judging by the letters in today's O, Starrett could very well draw conservative votes from Ron Saxton.  Two of the seven on the Governor's race voiced support for Mary Starrett over Ron Saxton.

The first of the two letters challenges Saxton's conservative credentials:

"The political bionic man this year is Ron Saxton. He has clearly been disassembled and put back together, issue by issue. He is now a conservative's conservative, complete with a Lars Larson bobblehead to convince me that he is the real thing...

"Mary Starrett has not been reconstructed. She is the only conservative in the gubernatorial race. She has my vote."

I'm well aware that letters to the editor don't constitute a poll of how voters are likely to mark their ballots.  But I don't recall seeing any letters from Keating supporters critical of Kulongoski.

Go Mary!