Political Interest

Mitt's Choice

It looks like Mitt Romney's little Hamlet act may be at an end, and he will have to unofficially declare his political intentions in a few days.  The Massachusetts legislature has passed an emergency contraception bill, which the anti-abortion forces in the national GOP are urging him to veto. 

Leaving aside the pro-lifer's curious claim that Plan B is abortion, apparently, life begins at ovulation, the political problem for Romney is that vetoing the bill would make his already shaky reelection chances shakier, and signing it would make his Presidential aspirations for 2008 disappear.

But, one should never underestimate Mitt's ability to hedge his bets:

A third option is to send the bill back to the Legislature with an amendment that would allow individuals or hospitals to refuse to dispense the contraception pill if it offends their morals, a so-called conscience clause.

The House had included a conscience clause in its version of the bill, but the provision was taken out of the final version of the bill in negotiations with the Senate.

The High Cost of High Housing Costs

Most of the articles about soaring housing costs these days are hand wringing affairs about the possible burst in the housing bubble and what that could do to the economy. Most of the economic analysis articles that are coming tend to highlight the positive effects of rising home values on the economy such as the jobs created in construction and the so called "wealth effect" home owners feel when their property values rise.

But today's Washington Post has good article on one of the negative economic and social costs of soaring housing costs, which is unaffordability for much of the middle class workforce and what .some local governments are doing about it.

Increasingly, governments in affluent areas across the country are considering similar steps to provide partly subsidized "workforce housing," a term that has cropped up in the past few years to describe affordable housing programs targeted at the middle-class workers who make up the core of the local workforce, said David Jeffers, director of Fannie Mae's community business center in Northern Virginia.

Those in the target population -- firefighters, teachers, nurses and other moderate-income workers -- aren't poor, but they don't make enough money to live in the places they serve, he said. So they commute from hours away, straining their families and clogging up traffic for a paycheck that, for now, seems worth the trip.

Fewer than a quarter of Montgomery County's firefighters live where they work, according to a recent report. The same holds true in Fairfax, where some firefighters commute from as far away as Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia.

Many experts predict that these moderate-wage employees eventually will tire of that way of life and seek work closer to home, causing worker shortages in the communities they leave behind, Jeffers said.

This has been a wake-up call to local governments, he said. "People are starting to say, 'Hey, wait a minute, now [the affordable housing crisis] is not just the poor and the near-poor -- it's starting to affect firefighters and middle managers,' " Jeffers said. "This is not just do-gooderism. This is about people we never thought we would be without."

Dishonesty or Incompetence?

Whenever a politician is caught saying one thing and doing another they face the choice of pleading incompetence or admitting dishonesty, such as Bush's false claims about WMD in Iraq.  Now out in California, Arnie's got the same choice with regard to his proposed ballot initiative to reform the redistricting process.

It seems the petition circulated to get on the ballot differed from the one actually submitted for a vote in the fall.  Schwarzenegger claims it was just technical incompetence, but the judge isn't buying it, so the initiative is off.

I can't imagine this latest episode will further Schwarzenegger's reeling popularity.  By the way, how's that constitutional amendment to allow Arnie to run for President coming?

Bush's Gift to Iran

I almost missed this one, but the NY Times Book Review ran a very insightful analysis of the current Iraq situation by Peter Galbraith.  Basically, Iraq's already in a civil war, and the Iranians appear to be winning.  Check it out here.

Bush Hits the Edge of the Plate

I find myself in the unaccustomed position of giving some kudos to President Bush.  While I have little doubt there will be many decisions by Roberts that I'll find horrid, he seems to have found the candidate who's conservative enough for his base, but not quite reactionary enough to sustain real opposition in the Senate.  Take these quotes out of the WashPost:

John C. Yoo, a conservative professor of law at University of California at Berkeley who served in the Justice Department in the current administration, emphasizes what he called Roberts's traditional approach to the law. In the 39 cases that Roberts argued before the Supreme Court -- 25 of which he won -- Yoo said he never pushed the court to adopt "big new theories" but rather argued the facts of his cases.

"He's the type of person that business conservatives and judicial-restraint conservatives will like but the social conservatives may not like," Yoo said.

"What the social conservatives want is someone who will overturn Roe. v. Wade and change the court's direction on privacy," he added. "But he represents the Washington establishment. These Washington establishment people are not revolutionaries, and they're not out to shake up constitutional law. They might make course corrections, but they're not trying to sail the boat to a different port."

and...

"I know he's conservative by talking with him about issues," said Fred F. Fielding, for whom Roberts worked as a White House deputy counsel. Fielding said Roberts supported expansive presidential powers and tended toward a "more literal reading of the Constitution."

The Gang of Fourteen will have a hard time opposing Roberts, and, frankly, he might be the best we can get.

Depends on What the Meaning of Involved IS

So, slippery George seems to be clarifying what exactly is a firing offense in his bumbling administration: a criminal conviction while in office.  After giving the impression during the campaign that anyone involved in the Plame leak would be fired, he's upped the ante to conviction for being involved, according to the Wash Post.

Aides did not dispute that Bush appeared to raise the bar yesterday for what it would take for him to fire people involved the leak.

In June 2004, Bush was asked if he would "fire anyone found to" have leaked the agent's name. "Yes," he replied. Some Republican officials pointed to other quotations to dispute that Bush had changed his view, notably on Oct. 6, 2003, when he said: "This is a serious charge, by the way. We're talking about a criminal action."

Victoria Toensing, a lawyer and longtime Republican who helped write the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, which is at the center of this case, said Bush is now saying what he probably meant to say when the leak investigation was launched. "Of course you are going to be concerned if a law was broken," she said. "But what is it that somebody did wrong if they didn't break the law?"

My emphasis.

Ah, now that's a moral standard I am sure the religious right is sure to embrace.

China, Oil and Instability

These days, since the UNOCAL take over offer, one doesn't have to be a right wing nut to see the rise of China as the real long term challenge to the US, even more than radical Islam and terrorism.

In fact, in today's LA Times, they give us reason to combine the to problems, as China's growing thirst for oil is leading it into an alliance with the Islamic government in Iran:

Beijing has reportedly threatened to veto any U.S. attempt to impose sanctions on Iran for pursuing uranium enrichment technology in what Washington alleges is a nuclear arms program. China has also sold Iran weapons, including long-range missile technology, that could threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40% of the world's oil exports flow.

In October, Beijing used its friendship with Tehran to seal a $70-billion agreement giving Chinese companies a 51% stake in the huge Yadavaran oil field, Iran's largest onshore field, along with a promise to help develop the largely untapped area.

"With the current U.S. threat to refer Iran's nuclear case to the U.N., Iran needs friends in high places," said Reza Zandi, an energy expert and journalist for Iran's Sharq newspaper. "We want to be friends with 'big China,' and they want to be friends with us."

Deputy Iranian Oil Minister Seyed Mohammed Hadi Nejad Hosseinian said U.S. pressure had driven Iran into China's arms.

The U.S. Energy Department recently opened an office in Beijing, partly to discuss conservation and China's oil quest. U.S. officials also hope high-level dialogue will address Beijing's dealings with Tehran.

According to the article, China is scouring the earth for oil resources. While they're happy to trade those resources on the open market for now, it is doubtful they would let them slip away if push ever becomes shove in the Taiwan straights.

The US does not have a divine right to use our current disproportionate share of global energy supplies, so we should not complete begrudge the Chinese attempt to shore up their strategic position by acquiring these energy assets. 

But, we ought take this as the 14th ring of the snooze alarm as to how destabilizing our and the world's growing reliance on limited fossil fuels really is.  It gives incentive to our competitor's to make global mischief, the it gives mischief makers in China, Venezuela, Russia and else where the means to make mischief.

The Dark Heart of the Matter

Frank Rich points to the heart of the whole Plame-Rove scandal in a new column: the Bush administration's trumped up nuclear weapons charges against Iraq.  According to Rich, the Plame scandal may be key to starting a real investigation into the whole Bush-Cheney war promotion machine, I'm not so sure, but, click here to read it.

Denver Gone Soft

Denver was an early entry into the Real Estate boom in the nineties, and now it's one the first entries into a soft housing market. 

According to a New York Times article this morning, thanks to job losses in the telecom sector, Denver has been experiencing appreciation of just one to four percent in the last four years.  Click here to check out the whole thing.  While it's been a rude shock to some homeowners who had anticipated much greater returns, Denver's soft landing is the best case scenario for the current boom towns.

But, Denver may not be out the woods yet.  Given their continued soft job market, if interest rates rise, the soft landing could still turn hard

Everything the GOP didn't learn in Kindergarten

According to Josh Marshall, the DC Republicans may need to repeat kindergarten, because they seem to have missed some fundamental lessons about personal responsibility.

There's a point that's probably worth raising with our scofflaw Republican friends. All of their arguments now amount to excuses, like those of a small child caught stealing cookies: Joe Wilson's a liar. Plame's covert status wasn't protected well by the CIA. It was just a short phone call. Rove really wanted to speak about welfare reform. Wilson said Cheney sent him to Africa. Plame sent Wilson to Africa. Rove leaked Plame's identity in the interests of good journalism. Wilson went on too many TV shows. On and on and on.

The salient point is not that each of these claims is false. The point is that they're irrelevant. It's the mid-life version of 'He hit me first!' or 'He called me a name!' or other such foolery.

I guess personal reponsibility is just for poor people.