“Peace, prosperity, liberty and morals
have an intimate connection.”

- Thomas Jefferson

I was eating my Pop Tarts and reading a story in the Strib this morning when a thought popped into my head about the similarity between a violent, capital crime and violence against capital.

In the story a 17-year-old accused murderer has had charges against him dismissed because the witnesses are afraid to testify against him; one even left the state. Both the accused killer, Ramadan Abdi Shiekh Osman, and the victim, Ahmed Nur Ali, are members of the Somali community; Ali was an Augsburg student volunteering at the community center where the murder took place.

Now witness intimidation and the old self-preservation instinct are nothing new and certainly not unique to a particular ethnic group; it is the foundation of mob rule in any era or community. There's nothing especially unique about this particular story, either: justice is denied, the rule of law is flouted and a likely killer walks the streets. All of this because witnesses have learned a painful lesson and don't believe that law enforcement can protect them from reprisals and have therefore made themselves scarce or recanted their testimony. What may ultimately happen to the community as a result?

Now a neighborhood thug and the bankruptcies of Chrysler and GM — where the senior investors lost their legal standing for recovery by executive fiat — may look as if they are worlds apart, but I started to think about the "lessons" learned by the neighborhood witnesses, and if investors weren't learning the same lessons. That is, you have to depend on your own instincts and resources if you can't depend on the rule of law to look after you and preserve your community (or capital) when the prevailing gang gets to decide right and wrong and reward its friends and abuse its enemies. In the local community you clam up, lie low and even move away to avoid reprisals or becoming a target. In the investor community the equivalent is nearly the same: funds dry up, investors lie low and capital — being a lot more portable than an oppressed family — moves to a better neighborhood with less risk of confiscation.

And the community gets ugly, fast.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck."
— Robert A. Heinlein

David Foster at Chicago Boyz noted this disturbing news:

Obama has nominated Cass Sunstein, who he knows from the University of Chicago, to be “regulatory czar.” Apparently, Sunstein has proposed that web sites be required to link to opposing opinions. He has argued that the Internet is anti-democratic because users can choose to view only those opinions that they want to see, and has gone so far as to say:

A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government,” he wrote. “Democratic efforts to reduce the resulting problems ought not be rejected in freedom’s name.

The forced-linking proposal makes about as much sense as requiring that when you buy a political book at a bookstore, the store must also require you to buy books of contrary views. (And anyhow, how to you force the person to read the book or follow the link? Will there be a test? Penalties for failing to pass? Withdrawal of book-buying or web-browsing “privileges?”) Sunstein’s proposal is almost certainly unconstitutional–moreover, it is philosophically primitive. There are not one or two dissenting views from any opinion: there are thousands of them, incorporating widely differing conceptual frameworks. Who, in Sunstein’s world, would decide which views, as expressed by which authors, would be required to be linked? Probably either a government agency or a “service” run by a politically-well-connected corporation. A better way to suppress innovative thought would be difficult to imagine.

Fortunately, Sunsteim has backed away from this position and admitted its constitutional hurdles. This may or may not make you feel better, as Foster also says that Sunstein is also being considered as a candidate for the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Souter.

HT: Stones Cry Out

It struck me the other day that the modern Disney classic The Emperor's New Groove, is a stunning forecast of the Obama administration, even though it was released at the dawning of the previous administration in 2000.

Now, I don't blog about politics too much because there are so many better bloggers out there with more fire and deeper insights than I, plus my own belief is that there's really not a nickel's worth of difference between the two major parties' ruling credo of "just win, baby." I am a big movie fan, however, and some of the recent political headlines started dovetailing with the great songs and dialog in the movie. Were the Disney studios eerily prescient in their allegorical (not Al-Gore-ical) forecast of an Obama administration, or did I simply spend too many hours in a car this weekend with too little to occupy my mind? You be the judge.

Submitted for your consideration, the following excerpts with President Obama as Emperor Kuzco, Senator Judd Greg as Pacha, Rahm Emanuel as Kronk and a host of "characters" that Obama has thrown under the bus represented by the emporer's ex-advisor, Yzma.

Kuzco's theme song: This was sung by the great Tom Jones, but the cartoon vocalist with his red-blond afro and over-the-top enthusiasm sounds a lot like Chris Matthews to me. Consider these lyrics (think "Big O" instead of "Kuzco"):

He was born and raised to rule
No one has ever been this cool
In a thousand years of aristocracy
An enigma and a mystery
In Meso American History
The quintessence of perfection that is he

He's the sovereign lord of the nation
He's the hippest dude in creation
He's a hep cat in the emperor's new clothes
Years of such selective breeding
Generations have been leading
To this miracle of life that we all know

What's his name?
Kuzco, Kuzco, Kuzco...

He's the sovereign lord of the nation
He's the hippest cat in creation
He's the alpha, the omega, a to z
And this perfect world will spin
Around his every little whim
'Cause this perfect world begins and ends with him

What's his name?
Kuzco, Kuzco, Kuzco...

Weird, huh? Well how about these lines of dialog (real names inserted for cartoon characters):

Pacha/Judd Gregg: Uh-oh.
Kuzco/Obama: Don't tell me. We're about to go over a huge waterfall.
Pacha/Gregg: Yep.
Kuzco/Obama: Sharp rocks at the bottom?
Pacha/Gregg: Most likely.
Kuzco/Obama: Bring it on.

[after the stock market's fallen into the alligator pit]
Kuzco/Obama: Why do we even have that lever?

Kuzco/Obama: Oh, and by the way, you're fired.
Yzma/Rick Wagoner: Fired? W-W-What do you mean, "fired"?
[Kuzco/Obama snaps his finger and a servant comes in and writes down Wagoner's "pink slip"]
Kuzco/Obama: Um, how else can I say it? "You're being let go." "Your department's being downsized." "You're part of an outplacement." "We're going in a different direction." "We're not picking up your option." Take your pick. I got more.

Kronk/Rahm Emanuel: Hey, it doesn't always have to be about you. This poor little guy's had it rough. Seems a talking llama/talk show host gave him a hard time the other day.

Kuzco/Obama voiceover: This is Carville, the emperor's advisor. Living proof that dinosaurs once roamed the Earth.

[Kuzko/Obama collides with an old man/Jim Cramer while dancing]
Kuzco/Obama: D'oh! You threw off my groove!
Palace Guard/Media: I'm sorry, but you've thrown off the Emperor's groove.
[the old man/Cramer is thrown out of the palace window]
Old Man/Cramer: Sooooorry!

Kuzco/Obama: When will you learn that all my ideas are good ones?
Pacha/Gregg: Well, that's funny. Because I thought that you going into the jungle by yourself, being chased by jaguars, lying to me to take you back to the palace were all really bad ideas.
Kuzco/Obama: Oh, yeah. Anything sounds bad when you say it with that attitude.

Pacha/Gregg: Why did I risk my life for a selfish brat like you? I was always taught that there was some good in everyone, but, oh, you proved me wrong.
Kuzco/Obama: Oh, boo-hoo. Now I feel really bad. Bad Obama.

Yzma/Rev. Wright: Why, I practically raised him.
Kronk/Emanuel: Yeah, you'd think he would've turned out better.
Yzma/Rev. Wright: Yeah, go figure.

I don't know about you, but right now I'm scrutinizing Monsters vs. Aliens for predictions of the next election.

In wartime it's common to try to dehumanize the enemy, calling them derogatory names and ascribing vile and fiendish character traits to them to make it easier to hate and, I don't know, drop bombs on them. In class warfare a similar dynamic occurs as it is simply assumed that anyone with any wealth or property could only have gotten it through pure dumb luck (such as inheritance) or by corruption and oppression, thereby justifying the redistribution of their possessions in the interests of being "fair."

Of course, the definition of who the fortunate ones are can change according to the need at hand. The latest brainstorm of the economically illiterate, morally bankrupt yet somehow electable cotton-headed ninnymuggins in control of our government is that the lucky or evil greedos that get their health insurance through their employers (in other words, "people with jobs") are not paying their fair share of taxes for this benefit. According to a recent article in Business Insurance magazine:

Sen. Baucus looking at taxing health benefits
March 03, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—A senior Senate Democrat said Tuesday he would consider taxing U.S. workers on their employer-sponsored health insurance to help pay for extending coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

"I think that tax provision should be on the table," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who will play a major role in writing the legislation to revamp the U.S. healthcare system as promised by President Barack Obama.

"It's too aggressive. It skews the system," he said of the tax benefit.

Most U.S. workers with health insurance get it through their employers — 160 million of them — although recent surveys have shown that number is declining as businesses try to cope with the rapidly rising cost of insurance.

As a matter of fact, 19% of employers say they plan to drop health benefits, while 38% say they are uncertain they'll be able to provide health benefits 10 years from now. Meanwhile, in the midst of a recession, the government is talking about wanting to essentially raise taxes on people who still have jobs, regardless of what those jobs pay. By the way, let's have a show of hands from everyone who thinks that the premiums you pay for your employer-sponsored health insurance are too low. Apparently being employed makes you one of the "rich" to be targeted by Congress and President Obama's cabinet of tax dodgers and community organizers — the people who have also promised a tax cut to "95%" of the country. Do you get the feeling they might not be very good with numbers?

Yet in another article about "Mad Max" Baucus and his cronies, the Washington Post reports:

In recent weeks, however, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee, has repeatedly advocated changing tax laws to include employer benefits, arguing that it makes sense to fund the health-care changes by sucking cash out of the existing system. Meanwhile, 13 other senators — from both sides of the aisle — have signed on to a plan for universal coverage that includes a tax on employer-provided benefits.

"I think it's extremely important from a credibility standpoint to show the American people that you're making savings in the enormous sums now being spent on health care before you go out and ask them for billions of dollars more," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the sponsors of that proposal. "And I don't think I'm the only senator who feels that way."

What? How do you translate taking money out of the pockets of working Americans by making them pay more for their health insurance as "making savings"? Credibility is, indeed, a problem. Perhaps we'll find out how big a problem that is when the Obama administration weighs in, as the Post further reports:

So far, administration officials have been careful not to endorse the idea, which Obama blasted as a major tax increase last year after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made it the centerpiece of his presidential campaign's health plan. But the president hasn't slammed the door on it, either.

This week, White House budget director Peter Orszag said taxing employer benefits was among several ideas that "most firmly should remain on the table." White House economic adviser Jason Furman called for an end to the so-called "employer exclusion" before he joined the administration. Meanwhile, some congressional Democrats say the White House has signaled that Obama would accept a tax on employer benefits as long as he didn't have to propose it himself.

Riiight. Congress passes the tax increase and President Obama merely comes in at the end and says it's "an imperfect bill" but something he has to sign anyway. It's almost enough to make you wonder how much of a grasp on reality our leaders have, and if they've ever had to enroll in a group health plan in recent years when employers are passing more and more of the costs on to employees. And then there's this:

Many economists and tax analysts have long argued for changing current tax law on health coverage, which disproportionately benefits wealthier workers. The law encourages people to enroll in the most comprehensive health plans on offer, the so-called Cadillac plans that provide vast coverage, mask the true cost of health care and contribute to skyrocketing costs.

I don't know about your job, but my benefit enrollment forms certainly don't encourage me to select the most comprehensive, or "Cadillac" plans offering "vast" coverage. As a matter of fact, I've chosen high deductible plans with an Health Savings Account (HSA) option the past several years to save money. Further, the so-called Cadillac plans aren't driven by consumer demand, but by state and federal government mandates that require additional coverage (and wait until you see the effects of the Mental Health Parity bill that was recently signed). If consumers were allowed to pick and choose the coverages they actually need the costs would go down. Somehow, however, once the money is on the table there's no way to get it back in your pocket.

Many lobbyists and others involved in the health-care debate say they see few other places to go for the kind of money that will be needed to meet Obama's demand for ambitious change. In their view, the question is not whether employer benefits will be taxed but how much of the benefit will be spared.

My personal opinion is that taxing employee benefits is not really intended to raise money for health care. It's meant to make the current system even more dysfunctional in the hopes that employers will be even more anxious to get out of the system and the public will desperately embrace change — specifically, universal health care.

I'm actually in favor of getting employers out of the business of proving health insurance...but I want to do it by dumping the whole third-party-payer model that is the main reason health care continues to skyrocket, and universal (aka "single-payer") health care does nothing to relieve that problem while simultaneously reducing the standard of care as I and others have pointed out before. Let's not forget that the reason we got into this health care predicament in the first place was because of government interference via wage and price controls in World War II that led employers to offer health insurance benefits as a way of attracting a limited pool of workers. That opened the door to the wasteful and expensive third-party-payer system we currently have, the inefficiencies of which can only be outdone by a government-run system.

Obama: It's a Good Time to Buy Stocks

President Obama said Tuesday that now is a good time for investors to buy stocks if they focus on the big picture.

The Dow plunged Monday to its lowest level in 12 years.

"What you're now seeing is a profit and earnings ratios get to the point that buying stocks is a good thing if you have a long-term perspective on it," he said to reporters after meeting in the Oval Office with visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

That sounds very familiar. Let's access the ol' mental jukebox....ah, yes, Fred Waring and Pennsylvanians from 1932 with an Irving Berlin song called "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee":

Just around the corner,
There's a rainbow in the sky,
So let's have another cup of coffee,
And let's have another piece of pie.

Trouble's like a bubble,
And the clouds will soon roll by,
So let's have another cup of coffee,
And let's have another piece of pie.

Let a smile be your umbrella,
For it's just an April shower,
Even John D. Rockefeller
Is looking for the silver lining!

Mr. Herbert Hoover
Says that now's the time to buy,
So let's have another cup of coffee,
And let's have another piece of pie!

Back in the 1930s the shanty-towns of homeless people were called Hoovervilles. Perhaps tomorrow they'll be called Obama-villes, or maybe just "affordable housing."

Today is the birthday of Ronald Reagan; he would have been 98. We're also just barely past the 29th anniversary of his first inaugural address. Some highlights:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.
...
We are a nation that has a government--not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.
...
Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work--work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.
...
On the eve of our struggle for independence a man who might have been one of the greatest among the Founding Fathers, Dr. Joseph Warren, president of the Massachusetts Congress, said to his fellow Americans, "Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of . . . On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important questions upon which rests the happiness and the liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves."

Amen.

"I believe in the free speech that liberals used to believe in,
the economic freedom that conservatives used to believe in,
and the personal freedom that America used to believe in."
-- Doug Mataconis, Below the Beltway blog

The building where I work was envisioned by its famous architect to have two reflecting pools alongside it. Therefore it features two rectangular cement depressions on its west side. In the nearly 30 years that I've been coming to this site, "envisioning" the pools is about all you've been able to do because when they are filled with water they leak prodigiously and incorrigibly, despite many efforts over the decades to correct the problem. The property managers ultimately gave it up as a lost cause and left them empty, despite my suggestion that they would make wonderful planters.

Earlier this year, however, the building was sold to new owners who have taken up this grail. As a result workmen have been milling around for the last several weeks, measuring and marking and ultimately tearing up sections of the bottom of the pools; the short, repeated bursts of jackhammers on cement sounding just like the staccato ripping of a German MG42 in the WWII Brothers in Arms xBox game I like to play in my spare time. In the game when you hear that sound you get down or you die and I involuntarily ducked my head a couple of inches the first time I heard that rat-a-tat as I approached my office a couple of weeks ago.

The larger pool runs the length of the building, while the smaller is to the north, separated by a 30 foot wide plaza that leads to the portico at the front of the building. The plaza provides the path for me to get into the building as I walk from the light rail stop. A couple of weeks ago a tall, chain-link construction fence formed a parenthetical bracket along the north end of the large pool to keep gawking civilians out of the work area; for our safety, of course. Personally, I would be able to control myself and my curiosity enough to stay clear, but you know you can't trust the masses.

A day or two later a similar construction framed the south end of the smaller pool, creating a fenced path across the plaza, still about 30 feet wide. As construction has proceeded, however, the fences have been moved closer to each other as the plaza itself is bisected to lay a drain pipe. Last week we were down to an 8-foot-wide access across the plaza. Ugly, and a little inconvenient, but at least we could get through.

Today when I walked up the 8-foot access was gone and solid fencing extended all the way across the plaza. To get in I had to walk a quarter of a block around to the north and come up on the building from the other side while the chill November wind continued to abuse my ears. Tomorrow I'll come via the Skyway route from the train, which means, ironically, I'll actually take an underground tunnel for the last block to reach my objective.

It's been getting colder for some time now; it could be a long winter.

"I'm working so my grandchildren will have the same freedoms
my grandfather enjoyed."
--Rev. Dr. Tom Jestus

Wednesday's Writer's Almanac featured a poem by Bruce Taylor entitled "Middle-Aged Men, Leaning." It begins:

They lean on rakes.
It's late, it is evening
already inside their houses.

The children are gone.
Their wives are on the phone
talking softly to someone else.

This frost, this early Fall
upon their minds, a small
measure of patience and regard

as if the twilight world
in bright papery pieces
diminished so and thus.

It caught my attention because my fingers and palms are still sore from all the yard work we did last weekend; yard work that had me leaning on rakes and shovels as well as standing on ladders, wrangling in brush piles and wrestling with awnings. It was a lot of hard, dirty work but we were blessed with an extended stretch of early September at the end of October, giving us the time we desperately needed to get the yard ready to host the Mall Diva's upcoming nuptials in the spring.

While Tiger Lilly, my wife and I worked on the gardens the Mall Diva and Ben cleared out the four flower beds in front of the house and planted tulip bulbs, happy in the thought of the rewards for their labor regardless of whatever hardships and depradations should be visited upon these by the winter, the squirrels or the administration.

A long, cold season may be ahead but there's so much promise on the other side of it. I've lived through many a winter now and quite a few temporal seasons of hope and change -- some of which even almost worked. I take any and all forecasts with as many grains of salt as I'll eventually pour on my sidewalk in the months ahead, but one thing I know for certain is that the head of my government has decreed that seedtime and harvest shall not cease as long as the earth remains.

I once lead a group of men up to Lake Mille Lacs for an ice-fishing weekend. Ice-fishing isn't necessarily a thrill a minute, or even a thrill an hour. To wile away the time when we weren't clubbing eelpout or steeling ourselves for a trip to the satellite, I devised a poker tournament.

The concept was simple. Each of the ten guys received $2500 in scrip to use for betting. At the end of the weekend we would use the scrip we'd accumulated to bid on prizes that I brought along. Scrip changed hands at a moderate rate for the first hour or so as we played conventional games such as five card draw and seven card stud. Then someone suggested a hand of "in-between".

For those not familiar with this type of poker, it is a very simple but diabolical game that calls for very little strategy but generates huge pots and sudden betting reversals that deliver the kind of belly laughs that normally accompany watching another guy take an unexpected shot to the - umm - mid-section. The way it works is a player is dealt two cards face up. He then bets any amount up to whatever is in the pot at the time on whether the next card will be "in-between" the two cards (a card the same value as one of the first two dealt counts as a loss). Sometimes a player would get a deuce/king split and brazenly bet the pot, only to see another deuce or an ace turn up (hilarity would ensue). He would then have to pay the amount in the pot, which fattened it up significantly for the next guy who got a wide split and an opportunity to bet on a "sure thing".

This soon became the game of choice among our group, and it wasn't long after that before our first guys tapped out. Since it was hours until dawn and the fish were fasting, "loans" were quickly arranged from the people with a big stack to those less fortunate so everyone could continue to play. Soon enough, the once wealthy were borrowing from other players as well so everyone could "stay in the game." Some effort was made to keep track of who owed what and to who, but it rapidly became so convoluted as to be impossible.

By the time we were ready to leave, even the guy who had the biggest stack at the end still owed many times that to other players, who themselves owed many of their neighbors. As we tried to reconstruct the transactions I got the idea to add up all the "loans" that had been passed around. Even though there was still only $25,000 in actual scrip, the total of all the loans was easily more than ten times that. The only way we could have settled every thing was for me to go back into town and hit the Kinko's to photocopy more scrip!

I don't know what made me remember this story.

History means the endless rethinking — and re-viewing and revisiting — of the past. History, in the broad sense of the word, is revisionist. History involves multiple jeopardy that the law eschews: People and events are retried and retried again. --John Lukacs

I was in my early teens when the Watergate saga dominated the news and politics, setting the course of the style and tone of political reporting we take for granted today. You couldn't avoid the story as it played out, though eventually my attention would not extend much beyond the headlines as things such as girls and getting my driver's license became more important.

Then, a couple of months ago I heard Hugh Hewitt interviewing author James Rosen about his just released book, "The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate." At first my long-buried, reflexive mental eye-glazing at the mention of the word "Watergate" had me tuning out but some of Rosen's statements piqued my interest. Watergate was one of the defining and far-reaching events of our modern history and Mitchell was, next to Nixon, the central character in the drama — yet little was known about him. He himself was largely close-mouthed and much of the testimony by others about his role and involvement was contradictory and self-serving. As I listened to the interview I had to admit that it would be fascinating to get a look at what went on in the mind and life of the man who was the Attorney General not just for Watergate, but also the era of school desegregation battles, campus unrest and Kent State, and the investigations of historical figures such as Lt. William Calley and Jimmy Hoffa.

Before it could slip from my mind I went on-line and requested a copy of the book from my local library (it had yet to be purchased). A couple of weeks ago I was notified the book was waiting for me and I picked it up. I was finishing another book at the time so I didn't turn to The Strong Man right away. My borrowing period was almost up when I started to read it and I was so taken with the Prologue that I immediately tried to renew the book, only to find that I couldn't because others were waiting for it. Rats! I seriously thought about keeping the book until I was finished and just paying the fines, but realized that was selfish and inconsiderate of me when other people are waiting. From what I've read so far, I think people are going to be very happy to get their hands on this as soon as they can. I'm turning it back in — and I've got my name back on the waiting list!

The Prologue does a great job of setting the scene and outlining the significance of Mitchell's historical role and the irony of there being so little examination of it. Some of this was due to Mitchell's own reticence, so unlike his contemporaries:

Equally unlike his fellow Watergate convicts, Mitchell never published a book about his years in power, never sold his soul to pay lawyer's fees, never dished dirt on Richard Nixon to delight university audiences on the lecture circuit or viewers of The Mike Douglas Show. He never "found God." In electing to tough it out, one columnist wrote, Mitchell stood "up to his hips in midgets among the other Watergate characters...dividing the men from the boys." "Among the WASP Westchester country club Mafia," another columnist observed of Mitchell's behavior in Watergate, "the code of omertà holds." Richard Nixon, toasting his former attorney general at a post-prison party he threw for Mitchell in San Clemente, put it simplest: "John Mitchell has friends — and he stands by them."

No biographer even contacted him, though three books were written about his wife Martha, "an emotionally disturbed alcoholic whose late-night crank calls splashed her face across the front pages of every newspaper and magazine in the country."

Stunningly, no one bothered to chronicle the life of John Mitchell: child of the Depression, World War II combat veteran; Wall Street innovator; gray-flannel power broker to governors and mayors in all fifty states; Richard Nixon's law partner, consigliere, and winning campaign manager in 1968 and 1972; America's top cop, as attorney general, during the Days of Rage, the May Day riots, and the Pentagon Papers; and Public Enemy Number One when, in the words of a British observer, "the great black cloud of Watergate seemed to settle over America like a kind of grand judgment, not just on Nixon himself, but on the whole of post-war America."

In fact, Rosen notes,

John Mitchell bore witness to the most searing political turmoil in America since the Civil War. After all, it was Mitchell who ran the Department of Justice, and the administration of justice in those years occupies the central role in all lingering controversies from that era: Was justice done in the enforcement of school desegregation and antitrust laws? In the battles against antiwar protesters and radical groups? At Kent State and Jackson State? In the cases of Daniel Ellsberg and Lt. William Calley, Jimmy Hoffa and Robert Vesco, Abe Fortas and Clement Haynsworth, John Lennon and the Berrigan brothers, the Black Panthers and ITT?

Rosen devoted two decades to researching and writing the book, poring over relevant secondary sources such as the 500 books written about Watergate, Nixon, the 60s, and the countless newspaper and magazine articles from that time. Additionally, he interviewed

... 250 people, including two presidents, a vice president, two chief justices, three secretaries of state, two CIA directors, and a great many staff members of the Nixon White House and the Committee to Re-elect the President ... Also questioned were party officials and secretaries employed at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in June of 1972. These sessions included the only extensive interviews ever conducted with the woman whose telephone was wiretapped in the Watergate break-in and surveillance operation and more than eight hours of interviews with the only man who monitored the wiretap.

He also used the Freedom of Information act to get access to thousands of undisclosed documents from the Nixon Presidential Materials Project, including all of Haldeman's and Ehrlichman's 200,000 pages of hand-written notes from their meetings with the President. His research even included the internal files of the staff lawyers on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force and sworn testimonies from closed-door executive sessions of the Senate Watergate committee. He claims to know "what the WSPF lawyers knew about Watergate and when they knew it." These details showed key witnesses consciously changing their testimony to implicate Mitchell and hide their own actions. Finally, he had Mitchell's own private correspondence from prison, as well as Mitchell's tax returns and other de-classified documents. While he hints at revelations and developments in the prologue it is clear, in Rosen's own words, "Assuredly (this)... is not your father's Watergate."

Whereas the mention of Watergate used to bore me senseless, I am now excited to get this book back in my hands. It's almost as if I've discovered a long-last family album labeled with the names of people I half-remember that promises to explain the past...and describe the future. Oh, hell, forget the library. I may have to buy the book!

Let's see, you could have an acerbic, irascible, quick-with-quip wounded war veteran who is much older than his opponent as the Republican nominee for president, who could be going against a fresh, young face who has come out of nowhere in recent years to infuse and enthuse an electorate that seems eager for change.

How did that turn out for Bob Dole?

Man, people say the Ron Paul "Paul-bots" are obsessive, but checking out Hugh Hewitt's blog the past couple of times makes me think there's been some kind of Rom-bot Invasion of the Party Snatchers. There's a new post every 17 minutes defending Mitt Romney or blasting McCain, or both, and absolutely nothing else. Even a headline suggestive of an economics story is written in terms of what it means to Romney's candidacy. If we knew the world was going to end in 3 hours Hugh's headline would be "Apocalypse snatches victory from Mitt's grasp at the last moment."

Oh well, Mitt seems like a decent sort. If it's between him and McCain I'd vote for Romney, or some 6th or 7th party candidate, before I'd vote for McCain. Or maybe I'll just go get a tooth filled instead. This race just isn't that interesting or amusing to me.

Not like the other side of the fence where The Big O is facing off against the Big Uh-Oh. Do you remember back in 8th or 9th grade when people would start shouting about a "girl-fight" and you'd push your way through the crowd to get a good view — and then start pushing your way back out again after getting hit with a handful of hair? Man, girls fight nasty and yet everyone assumes they're so much more refined and cultured than boys. Just try to look away, though. Similarly Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton race around trying to convince the Dem's flotilla of special interest groups that he or she is the biggest victim and worthy of their vote. It's as compelling as watching "Real Life Stories of the ER", without that annoying message warning of graphic scenes. Plus there's always the chance of seeing Bill Clinton wag his, um, finger at us again. Good times.

Then, just as you think the story is all played out, there's a shocking twist like Teddy Kennedy endorsing Obama. That reminded me of another episode from my younger days. Ever play "Risk", the game of world domination? Do you remember the visceral thrill you got when one of the players from a strategic alliance that had been cleaning up the board suddenly turned on his partner and struck from the rear? Yeah, you knew it was inevitable but it still gave you a pleasant shiver. This was even better than John Kerry forsaking his running mate Edwards a couple of weeks ago to jump on the Obama wagon. I can just hear Obama saying "Thanks, John, now would you mind not standing so close to me when the cameras are clicking?" I didn't see the Kennedy endorsement coming, though, at least not this soon. I don't know, maybe Ted thought Obama was an Irish name?

Speaking of alliances, some are saying that the distant third place Democrat candidate John Edwards is in line to be Obama's attorney general. Wow, a trial lawyer and union puppet as head of the Justice Department? He'd make Halliburton look like a couple of neighborhood kids opening a lemonade stand.

Woot! Free money from the government!

Hmmm, wonder where they got it? Maybe someone accidentally left the printing presses on overnight at the Mint.

The proposed "stimulus" sounds kind of dubious to me. Kind of like pouring some Heet into your carburetor; you get a quick roar and a flash, maybe a puff of smoke from the engine and then it's gone. If there isn't any gas in the tank to begin with you're not going anywhere.

It's hard to believe $150 billion can disappear as quickly, and with as little effect, as moth pee evaporating off a light bulb, but a little extra one-time disposable income isn't going to encourage people to save or invest, which is what's really needed if you want to get the engine running again.

Oh, don't worry, I'll take the money, alright. And any leftover cheese if the government's still got any. It's just hard to think of what to spend it on as the value of the money is going to depreciate even as it's still in the mail to me. I think the wise Reverend Mother, also known as "The Finance Minister" around our house hit on the best (if most ironic) use for the almost intangible money:

Buy gold.

Don't like the opportunistic, economically-flawed, even counter-productive rush to biofuels? You're not alone, though you might be surprised who shares your concerns.

Oxfam International, a social justice, anti-poverty organization has released a report condemning the EU's biofuel mandates as not only being unproductive, but downright nasty:

EU proposals will make it mandatory by 2020 for ten per cent of all member states’ transport fuels to come from biofuels. In order to meet the substantial increase in demand, the EU will have to import biofuels made from crops like sugar cane and palm oil from developing countries. But the rush by big companies and governments in countries such as Indonesia, Colombia, Brazil, Tanzania and Malaysia to win a slice of the ‘EU biofuel pie’ threatens to force poor people from their land, destroy their livelihoods, lead to the exploitation of workers and hurt the availability and affordability of food.

“In the scramble to supply the EU and the rest of the world with biofuels, poor people are getting trampled. The EU proposals as they stand will exacerbate the problem. It is unacceptable that poor people in developing countries should bear the cost of questionable attempts to cut emissions in Europe,” said Robert Bailey from Oxfam.

Biofuels may offer the potential to reduce poverty by increasing jobs and markets for small farmers, and by providing cheap renewable energy for local use, but the huge plantations emerging to supply the EU pose more threats than opportunities for poor people. The problem will only get worse as the scramble to supply intensifies unless the EU introduces safeguards to protect land rights, livelihoods, workers rights and food security.

EU member states agreed that the ten per cent target must be reached sustainably, but Oxfam warns that the current proposals contain no standards on the social or human impact.

“The EU set its biofuel target without checking the impact on people and the environment. The EU must include safeguards to ensure that the rights and livelihoods of people in producing countries are protected. Without these, the ten per cent target should be scrapped and the EU should go back to the drawing board,” said Bailey.

“Let’s be clear, biofuels are not a panacea – even if the EU is able to reach the ten per cent target sustainably, and Oxfam doubts that it can, it will only shave a few per cent of emissions off a continually growing total.”

Published reports show that as much as 5.6 million square kilometres of land – an area more than ten times the size of France – could be in production of biofuels within 20 years in India, Brazil, Southern Africa and Indonesia alone. The UN estimates that 60 million people worldwide face clearance from their land to make way for biofuel plantations. Many end up in slums in search of work, others on the very plantations that have displaced them with poor pay, squalid conditions and no worker rights. Women workers are routinely discriminated against and often paid less then men.

You can read the entire report on Oxfam's site. While there's a certain amount of "World to end; women and minorities hardest hit" perspective, it's an interesting take on an issue that many people, despite differing political views, still sense is profoundly wrong-headed.

HT: Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog.

Don't look at me like that. In this case FAGS stands for Fight Against Government Suppression (it's also Brit slang for cigarettes), and is the name of an English political party established by pub-owner Hamish Howitt, the first pub-owner in England to be prosecuted for violating the country's new smoking ban for pubs and restaurants. Howitt, a non-smoker himself, pleaded guilty but vows to continue to allow smoking in his pub and to not pay the fines.

From Scotsman.com:

I'll still ignore smoking ban, vows publican fined £500
KIM PILLING

A SCOTTISH pub landlord vowed yesterday to continue to allow his customers to flout the smoking ban in England after being fined for offences at his bar in Blackpool.

Hamish Howitt, 55, who was born in Glasgow, was fined £500 and ordered to pay £2,000 prosecution costs after he admitted flouting the ban, which was introduced in England in July.

The owner of the Happy Scots Bar is the first publican south of the Border to be convicted of breaching the law. Howitt, a non-smoker, has been a staunch critic of the ban and set up a political party called Fight Against Government Suppression, or FAGS.

However, District Judge Peter Ward, sentencing Howitt at Blackpool Magistrates' Court, said his campaign had been "silly, misguided and pointless".

Granted, it's not exactly William Wallace mooning the Brits, but Howitt has definitely set out to pick a fight as the signage on the outside walls of his pub demonstrate in these Flickr photos here and here. (Normally I would download the images and post them here rather than poaching bandwidth by linking to the site but the images are copyrighted and I don't want to stretch the "fair-use" doctrine, especially when I don't know who to credit for the originals).

Howitt doesn't risk losing his head (merely his pub license) for his violations, though judging by the comments from readers at the end of the article, there are some who wouldn't mind seeing him drawn and quartered.

As a dedicated non-smoker myself (never smoked, in fact) and someone who has deliberately avoided public places that are too smokey, I nevertheless side with the rights of private property owners to manage their legal businesses (and customers using legal products) as they see fit, free from government encroachment, especially when dubious science is involved. (I'm sure it won't be long before some study links the number of smokers being forced outside to man-made global warming.)

In this week's Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN.com, Gregg Easterbrook (no fan of George W. Bush) writes:

Exaggerating the Case Against Bush Only Lessens the Focus on His Real Faults:
There's a lot to dislike about the George W. Bush administration — the Iraq war, lack of action on petroleum waste, wiretapping — but in the rush to make Bush seem as bad as possible, the establishment media consistently have distorted his domestic environmental record, which is basically fine. Air, water and toxic pollution have declined since Bush took office; all U.S. environmental indicators except greenhouse gas emissions have been positive for 20 to 30 years, which you'd never know from opening the morning newspaper.

A problem is that environmental journalists are genetically programmed to spin all stories as bad news while ignoring progress. A classic example is stories expressing horror and outrage that environmental prosecutions initiated by the EPA or filed by the Justice Department are declining, as they have been since the middle of the Clinton administration. But it's good that environmental prosecutions are declining — the reason is that pollution is declining! As pollution declines, there are fewer violations to prosecute. If speeding declined, police would write fewer tickets: Would we be glad speeding was declining or express horror over the shocking, shocking reduction in prosecution of speeders?

There the canard was again as the Sunday lead-headline story of The Washington Post: "The Environmental Protection Agency's pursuit of criminal cases against polluters has dropped off sharply during the Bush administration, with the number of prosecutions, new investigations and total convictions all down by more than a third," the story began. Of course environmental prosecution is declining, there is less to prosecute every year! The Post's banner story ran 38 paragraphs but never mentioned that all forms of pollution except greenhouse gases are declining, and because greenhouse-gas emissions are legal, there's nothing to prosecute. Mention that pollution is in long-term decline, and Sunday's front-page banner story in The Washington Post goes "poof."

Last week the Inver Grove Heights City Council met to hear from the public regarding a new property maintenance ordinance aimed at instituting certain appearance, maintenance and lawn-care standards for private homes. As with many laws, especially those regarding private property, this ordinance wasn't aimed at defining or protecting an owner's property rights, but at criminalizing poor or indifferent citizenship. Of course, it's all for a good cause: "It's for the children," one of the proponents said.

Apparently, it's more harmful for children to see a messy yard than it is for them to see adults taking their neighbors to court to resolve a problem instead of pitching in to help.

As a property-owner I know how discouraging and aggravating it can be to share a neighborhood — or even a property-line — with an "eye-sore" home and lot. I am much more concerned, however, with the ever-increasing encroachments on property rights, typically in the name of "doing good." From Kelo, to smoking bans, to how high you let the grass grow, it's an ever-expanding power-grab passed off as being for the common good without any real examination of how much good — or how much harm — is actually being done. (On a side-note, I heard one news-reader on KFAN this a.m. referring to the new state-wide smoking ban in bars and restaurants, say the ban "does not apply to private homes at this time" — suggesting, what?)

In this particular case, this issue for me is not just a legal or conservative one about rights and what you can get people to go along with, it is a moral and Biblical one as well. Usually it seems that if you raise a moral issue these days it's assumed that you want to impose some narrow-minded "thou shalt not" on other people. In this case the "thou shalt nots" being imposed are coming from the larger public and what's being missed is the "thou shall" Biblical instruction. You know, the one that "thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself." Note, that doesn't say "love they neighbor only if thy neighbor is a believer," nor does it say "if you are a believer, thou shall love thy neighbor."

What if that neighbor with the dilapidated house or junky yard is someone struggling just to make ends meet and can't afford to make the improvements to the paint or siding that the community deems to be necessary? What if that neighbor is working two or three jobs and might skip mowing the lawn from time to time? What if your neighbors are an elderly couple who don't have the physical, let alone financial, resources to maintain the property but are trying to live independently? Shall we just have our pubic servants, the police, march up to the door and slap a citation on it? Certainly it would be "legal." Or, alternatively, shall we walk up to the door in person, knock on it and say, "Hi, you may not know me but I'm your next-door neighbor and I was wondering if there was something I could do to help?"

Ok, so what if that neighbor is a lazy bum who's perfectly capable of maintaining his house or yard, or is someone who just likes to use old washing machines as lawn statuary? Well, it could be that your offer might not be well-received, or that your neighbor might think that you're the nutjob. But if a succession of people approached him or her over time and offered to help (as opposed to demanding that he or she "straighten up") what effect could that have? The neighbor would know that people are paying attention, that they care about the neighborhood and their property values, and that they're willing to try to help first rather than condemn. He may not change his attitude completely but he may be motivated to try to make some improvements (even grudgingly) or even accept an offer of help. Which approach do you think ultimately contributes to a better neighborhood?

If that is starting to sound like a good idea to you, but you're thinking, "yeah, why can't the government do something to help that guy?" then you're still missing the point. A lot of the problems we're facing in our communities come from the fact that we've allocated to the government the responsibility of looking out for the well-being of those around us, of loving our neighbors. Sure, we mean to "do good" by passing new laws and taxes but we're merely passing off our personal responsibility to do good to another, impersonal (and usually less efficient) entity.

Now it could be that your neighbor is a loser with no conscience or sense of shame who will readily accept help from you and your neighbor and just sit back and figure someone will always bail him out and never lift a finger himself. There's certainly precedent for that happening when the help comes from a faceless government, but may not be so common when there are real faces involved. It's worth a try at least to see if you can make a difference, and if someone is totally resistant or irresponsible there are other Biblical examples of how to deal with an unrepentent individual (and no, they don't involve stoning — I'm thinking Matthew 18:15-17).

Furthermore, do we know how many people might fall into this latter category, and might it be worthwhile to figure it out before writing an ordinance or passing a law? At the Inver Grove Heights meeting, one person asked the Council how many complaints had been filed regarding nuisance properties. The answer was 160. The questioner then asked how many private homes were in Inver Grove Heights. The Council and the proponents of the ordinance didn't know.

How many of the complaints referred to the same property? They didn't know.

How many complaints had been filed by the same person? They didn't know.

For the time being, the Council has decided to proceed with a stripped down version of the ordinance that regulates junk, open storage, woodpiles and similar eyesores but not the outside condition of houses and other buildings. It was much less than ordinance proponents were hoping for, and the issue is still alive. A second reading of the ordinance is scheduled for the next Council meeting on October 8.

Now that Larry Craig has belatedly done the honorable thing and resigned from the Senate we are spared the torturous explanations to the effect that he is not gay but was merely tapping his foot in time to the Pat Boone tunes he was listening to on his iPod. Nor will we have to hear that in reality he has silently suffered from Restless Leg Syndrome (as a result of childhood trauma) and has now realized the need to place himself under a doctor's care and hopes other sufferers will be inspired by his example to get the help they need before it's too late and their own actions are horribly and publicly misconstrued.

My objection to Craig's behavior isn't so much because he was allegedly cruising for gay sex (not that there's anything wrong with that. of course) in a public restroom, but that he was doing so in violation of his wedding vows. Whether it happens in the men's room of the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport or in a windowless hallway outside the Oval Office study, infidelity is sleazy and despicable. How can you trust anyone who has sworn to protect the Constitution against "all enemies foreign and domestic" on behalf of millions of people he'll never meet when he's already disregarded the "love, honor and cherish" promise to someone he'll have to face the rest of his life?

The most disappointing thing about the whole Craig episode and its coverage is that it is the gay-sex angle is what is sensationalized and not the faithlessness. Strangely, in today's supposedly metrosexual, Will & Grace, Queer As (just plain) Folk, just-another-form-of-normal culture it's the gay angle that gets the Man-bites-dog treatment while the marital infidelity aspect is apparently so common as to be unremarkable.

And really, aren't all of these scandals becoming so common that they barely justify the shock treatment in the media? It's looking as if the page-abusing, hooker-visiting, perv-inducing legislators in D.C. are the norm and the front-page, 24-hour-news-cycle treatment should be reserved for the men and women who don't lower themselves. It's to the point where saying, "A pox on both your houses" isn't a curse of disgust but a prophetic statement.

Chad the Elder at Fraters Libertas beat me to posting about an editorial in the Wall Street Journal the absurdity and hypocrisy of those using the cantilevered ruins of the 35W bridge as a springboard to call for higher gas taxes.

Minnesota's transportation auditors warned as long ago as 1990 that there was a "backlog of bridges that are classified as having structural deficiencies." In 1999 engineers declared that cracks found in the bridge that collapsed were "a major concern." Bike paths were deemed a higher priority by Congress, however, including its powerful Minnesota Representatives.

As recently as July 25, Mr. Oberstar sent out a press release boasting that he had "secured more than $12 million in funding" for his state in a recent federal transportation and housing bill. But $10 million of that was dedicated to a commuter rail line, $250,000 for the "Isanti Bike/Walk Trail," $200,000 to bus services in Duluth, and $150,000 for the Mesabi Academy of Kidspeace in Buhl. None of it went for bridge repair.

Minnesota's state budget is also hardly short of tax revenue. The state spends $25 billion a year, twice what it did 10 years ago. The Tax Foundation reports that Minnesota has the seventh highest personal income tax rates among all states, the third highest corporate tax rates, and the 10th highest taxes on workers.

The Legislature started the year with a record $2 billion budget surplus, and the economy threw off another $149 million of unexpected revenue. Where did all that money go? Not to roads and bridges. The Taxpayers League of Minnesota says the politicians chose to pour those tax dollars into more spending for health care, art centers, sports stadiums and welfare benefits.

Even transportation dollars aren't scarce. Minnesota spends $1.6 billion a year on transportation — enough to build a new bridge over the Mississippi River every four months. But nearly $1 billion of that has been diverted from road and bridge repair to the state's light rail network that has a negligible impact on traffic congestion. Last year part of a sales tax revenue stream that is supposed to be dedicated for road and bridge construction was re-routed to mass transit. The Minnesota Department of Economic Development reports that only 2.8% of the state's commuters ride buses or rail to get to work, but these projects get up to 25% of the funding.

Americans aren't selfish or stingy, and they can see for themselves that many of our roads need repair. Minnesota in particular is a state that has long prided itself on its "progressive" politics and a willingness to pay higher taxes for good government. Minnesotans already pay twice as much in taxes per capita than residents in New Hampshire and Texas — states that haven't had a major bridge collapse.

We don't lack the money in Minnesota to do what needs to be done, and should have been done. What we lack are the political leaders on both sides with the vision and guts to serve the public and not their pet interest groups. The money problem isn't that there's not enough to do the job but that it's misused and abused to buy votes — whether it's state money diverted to boondoggles or the money the special interests pour in to fit lovely gold rings into the noses of the politicians.

Most folks can recall the references to God in the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence; you know the parts about "the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them" and all men being "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." You might be surprised, however, to know that this wasn't the last reference — in what some today would have you believe is a "secular" document — to a Divine interest in the affairs at hand. The last paragraph also establishes a spiritual foundation:

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.