Every so often, members in Congress switch parties. A number of political analysts I have spoken with lately have told me that a few Republican House members might turn Democrat between now and January, thus increasing any potential majority that the Democrats may have in the House after election night. From what I have heard, I really think it is a realistic possibility.
But Del Ali of Research 2000 is predicting the same thing -- although this time it's in the Senate, and as many as five GOP Senators could turn Democrat. Personally, I think it's a bit overstated. But you cannot deny some might change, especially after some -- like Chuck Hagel and John Warner -- have been positioning themselves in an uncharacteristic fashion over the last week.
elaborated:
The morning after the 1994 election, while Democrats were licking theirwounds, they got kicked again when Sen. Richard Shelby announced thathe was switching his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican.Shortly after Shelby's switch, Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell jumped tothe GOP side too. In addition, several more House Democrats who werereelected in 1994 from mostly southern states, switched to the GOPmaking the 1994 election a good old fashioned ass kicking of theDemocratic party.
There is a realistic possibility that if the Democrats pick up at leastfive Senate seats on Election Night, several current RepublicanSenators could switch to the Democratic side of the aisle. Remember,Shelby switched because he felt Democrats were incapable of moving awayfrom liberalism and Campbell switched because he felt Democrats werebeholden to cronyism and did not respect other views among colleagueson issues important to Campbell. In 2006, cronyism is alive and well inthe GOP ranks: Arlen Specter is shunned by the GOP leadership and WhiteHouse for his views on domestic surveillance while Olympia Snowe, JohnWarner and Chuck Hagel are shunned for their views on Iraq.
If Warner and Hagel change, it is likely part of their effort to maintain seniority in their committee assignments -- although that would have to be sorted out with Harry Reid, assuming he would be the Majority Leader.
Elaborating on a study that I briefly touched on today, experts at Johns Hopkins University paint a seriously grim picture of the war in Iraq. Their study, among many other findings, concludes that an average of 500 Iraqis are dying each day. Richard Engel of NBC reported on its findings:
Click to
--- Partial Transcript ---
ENGEL: "The new study says that an average of five-hundred Iraqis are dying here every day. That is many times more than any estimates released so far."
The has more:
Its central conclusion, based on a population-based survey conducted atsome risk by a team of Iraqi and American public health researchers, isthat approximately 600,000 people have died violently above the normalmortality rate. Including non-violent deaths that are neverthelesslinked to the war, the total is estimated to be more than 650,000.
While this is definitely the most discouraging study so far since the war began, it is not the only one that paints a startling assessment of civilian casualties:
In 2004, a concluded that more than 100,000 Iraqis had died since the war began. Remember, that was before the giant spike in violence in 2005 and 2006.
A study conducted by the University of Maryland's Program on International Study Attitudes found that on US troops. In that same poll, most respondents had a negative view of Osama bin Laden.
I might point out that before the GOP and their conservative talk-show puppets completely discount the study, they should probably think twice before bashing the school that was the alma mater of the most famous neoconservatives -- like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle and William Kristol.
From John McCain's comments about the Clinton Administration yesterday, you can gather that we are in the middle of a political season. Republicans need to do everything they can over the next three weeks to divert attention away from Iraq and the Foley scandal, even if it means blaming Bill Clinton for North Korea's nuclear test.
As a student who was taught in the spring of 2005 by a North Korean refugee about post-Cold War U.S.-Korean relations, I find it frustrating to listen to some of the stuff that is being said about the current nuclear standoff.
But first thing is first: although I am a progressive Democrat at heart, I was taught about North Korea by a honorable and scholarly individual with little partisan loyalties at all other than his yearning for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. Almost everything that I know about North Korea today I learned from him. This is a man who fled his country as a child during the Korean war. He went on to live in South Korea -- going from a refugee to a hard-working student, who eventually moved to the United States and became a U.S. citizen. He now teaches at the University of Washington's Jackson School of International Studies.
When I write about North Korea on this blog, I am almost always writing about what I know based on many dozens of hours worth of research papers and fabulous lectures that I experienced in that class.
Let me get to the reason why I am writing this blog entry. Yesterday, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) for the inability of the United States to stop North Korea in the totalitarian regime's pursuit of nuclear weapons:
"I would remind Senator (Hillary) Clinton and other criticsof the Bush administration policies that the frameworkagreement of the Clinton administration was a failure," McCainsaid in a statement, referring to a 1994 deal under which NorthKorea agreed to halt work on a plutonium-based nuclearfacility, partly in exchange for free fuel oil deliveries.
..."We had a carrots-and-no-sticks policy that only encouragedbad behavior. When one carrot didn't work, we offered another."
What McCain said about Clinton was 90% inaccurate. In concluding that it was a "carrots-and-no-sticks" policy, the Arizona Senator forgets that the Clinton Administration on the nuclear reactor in 1994. There were definitely both carrots and sticks being implemented. The prevented war and forced North Korea to abandon its plutonium-based nuclear weapons program. According to former U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson, if it had not been for the Clinton Administration's Agreed Framework that put a halt to the plutonium build-up, North Korea today . Between when the deal was signed and when Clinton left office, North Korea produced no new nuclear weapons and in no way posed the same kind of threat to East Asian stability that it does today. In that regard, Clinton needs to be commended, if anything.
As any East Asia scholar will tell you, the Agreed Framework was far from perfect. For example, it did not solve the problem of uranium enrichment. However, what people need to know is that there is a sharp difference between a plutonium-based nuclear program and a uranium-based nuclear program. Going the plutonium route allows weapons to be built at a much faster pace. Uranium enrichment takes a lot more effort, and it is more difficult to build mass quantities of such weapons if you are up against the clock. In other words, if you had to pick one to deal with first, it was definitely the plutonium issue -- which Clinton did.
After the plutonium program had been halted, in 1997 Pakistan sent key technological information to North Korea to help them enrich uranium. The Clinton Administration was furious at the move, as was Japan. In 1998, North Korea launched a missile over the island of Japan, which led to the Japanese scaling back all of their annual North Korean aid money. Later in the decade, Secretary of State Albright was sent to North Korea to begin dialogue about the uranium enrichment program that the U.S. believed needed to be dismantled. No deal was completed in the final year that Clinton was in office. But as I wrote earlier, Clinton did succeed in using both carrots and sticks to halt North Korea's plutonium-based nuclear program.
Now this is where Bush comes into the picture. When Bush came into office, he decided to and enact a policy crafted by the neoconservatives that called for no bilateral talks with North Korea. Hearing this, the North Korean government upped its military expenditures. Following President Bush's famous , North Korea restarted its plutonium-based nuclear program. In other words, following that speech and continuing on into today, North Korea has both its uranium and plutonium programs working. All the effort that the Clinton White House put into successfully stopping the plutonium program had been over-turned by one lousy Bush speech.
Since 2002, the U.S. policy towards North Korea has been regime change. In response, North Korea's economic and political policies have centered around regime survival. So while Bush was busy pursuing regime change, Kim Jong IL was busy pursuing regime survival -- making the two policies offset.
Specifically, the U.S. policy of regime change consists of isolating the North Korean regime by depriving them economically and politically from the international community -- all in hope that Kim Jong IL would be deposed. Bush's policy of regime change has been enacted from 2002 through today, and has produced the following results:
The regime is still intact and more centralized than ever.
Both its plutonium and enrichment-based nuclear programs are now functioning.
Military expenditures are at a higher percentage than they were before.
Long-range missile capability is better than it has ever been.
The regime conducted its first official nuclear weapons test.
Once again, to hear someone like for the nuclear standoff is insulting to history. While Clinton's 1994 Agreed Framework was not perfect, had it not been enacted North Korea would have 50 nuclear weapons today. On the other hand, the Bush policy of isolation and regime change has produced the opposite effect, and has even encouraged the regime to become the next nuclear state.
So please, Mr. McCain, you can offer any strategy that you want for solving the nuclear standoff -- even if that means following the same broken Bush policy of regime change through isolation. However, please don't revise history.
A report by the finds that if the cost of President Bush's tax cuts for the rich were not included in the 2006 White House budget, then the budget would be balanced.
Don't get me wrong: I have never been in favor of repealing all of the Bush tax cuts -- at least as far as the portion that goes to the middle class is concerned. However, I definitely would repeal at least one-third of the Bush tax cuts, which goes to the wealthiest 1% of the country. So what else would I cut from the budget? How about most of the Iraq war costs, which turn out to be . I would also cut the . That would be more than enough to balance the budget. Oh, if only Bill Clinton were around. --------------------------------------------------------- Other sites blogging about this issue: , , , , .
Global warming skeptics can criticize scientific data all they want. But when the names of national parks start contradicting their features, it is hard to keep denying it. Glacier National Park, for example, will be if temperatures continue to follow the current trend.
in all are in the process of severe shifts in weather:
"Rising temperatures, drought, wildfires and diminished snowfallsendanger wildlife and threaten hiking, fishing and other recreationalactivities" in the parks, Spencer said in a telephone news conference."Imagine Glacier Park without glaciers or Yellowstone without anygrizzly bears."
Up in the Northwest, my neck of the woods, North Cascades National Park has of its glacier mass since 1958. As the grandson of a very wise man that was influential in the Parks Department decades back, it hurts to see this sort of thing happen to our National Parks while we stand there and do nothing to change our current environmental policy.
At least one U.S. Senator is trying to do something about it. magazine is reporting that Jim Jeffords, an Independent from Vermont, is proposing legislation that would reduce harmful greenhouse emissions by 80% by the year 2050. But Oklahoma Republican , who is the Chairman of the Senate Public Works Committee, is a skeptic of global warming and might try to block that groundbreaking piece of legislation. Back in July of 2003, Inhofe issued a claiming that the scientific community was divided about whether global warming existed -- which was .
So, as you can see, even with all the unusually in July and even with all the reports that , there will always be oil lobbyists pressuring Republicans in Congress. We need to keep pressuring our and to enact greener policies so that we won't let our children down. ------------------------------------------------------------ Other blogs writing about Global Warming: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
When we invaded Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks, we had Al Qaedaon the run. But once we invaded Iraq, things changed. A UKparliamentary committee is reporting that Iraq is being used as arecruiting ground for Al Qaeda. And again, I ask how our massiveoccupation could possibly be healthy for the long-term security of thatcountry?
The UK's Daily Telegraph that was submitted by the parliament's Foreign Affairs Select Committee:
In a bleak assessment, the foreign affairs selectcommittee says al-Qa'eda, rather than being subdued, has changed itsmodus operandi and is using Iraq as a propaganda tool and trainingground for its global operations.
The committeealso cites growing evidence that terrorist tactics used in Iraq, suchas attacking allied troops with vehicles packed with explosives, arebeing imitated by al-Qa'eda-linked groups in Afghanistan.
...The report will place more pressure on Tony Blair after the death at the weekend of two British soldiers in Afghanistan and a killed 69 and injured more than 100.
Itsassessment of deteriorating conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan - andthe effects the conflicts are having on fuelling Islamic extremism -comes before Friday's first anniversary of the in which 52 innocent people and four suicide bombers died.
This backs up a similar several weeks ago on Meet the Press with Tim Russert about why the U.S. troop presence fueling the insurgency.
Furthermore, this report by the UK Parliament, , criticized the U.S. strategy of relying too much on the Shiites and Kurds because it has inflamed the situation with Sunnis:
While British, American and allied forces hopeto eventually hand off responsibilities to Iraqi troops, the country'sforces "remain a long way from being able to take the lead on securityacross Iraq," the lawmakers said.
The reliance on Shiite and Kurdish soldiers tobuild up troop numbers has added to tensions in a country already rivenby ethnic violence, the lawmakers said.
This helps explain why, , why most people living in the UK have such an unfavorable image of the United States. Now that is saddening.
In comparison to the 2004 primaries, 2008 will be a whole new ballgame as far as the impact that blogs will have on deciding who will emerge as the Democratic nominee. Technology is changing, and so is news. More than ever, a huge chunk of Democratic voters get their news from blogs, such as this one. So what happens in January of 2008 when there are somewhere between six and ten Democratic presidential candidates running against one another? The role of the progressive blogosphere could be huge.
In a commentary by Atrios last week, he acknowledged that the during the 2008 primary season. Most progressive blogs will endorse a candidate, stick to that candidate and slam other progressive blogs that endorse someone else.
Personally speaking, I have yet to decide whether or not I will endorse a candidate on this web site right before the Iowa Caucuses. I also have not determined whether to endorse a candidate at all. Will having a favorite Democrat prevent me from being an impartial blogger? Or, on the other hand, is it unnatural for bloggers like myself to abstain from a personal opinion? I give my own take on politics each day -- so why stop in January of 2008? Regardless of what I decide, I can guarantee that I will give it a lot of thought.
Generally speaking, this is very significant. The fact that I am even writing about how bloggers might need to exercise journalistic responsibility says a lot about what kind of news era we are in. This is unprecedented! In 2004, Howard Dean helped prove that it was possible to develop a winning campaign online. Today, we can be certain that the 2008 primary contest will be won or lost online.
Some might not like the idea of this new political revolution. But think about what this means as far as encouraging young people to get involved in our political process and public service. Take the recent immigration debate, for example. Today, Ari Melber of The Nation Magazine wrote about how the helped organize one of the largest nationwide marches in the history of this country:
Conventional campaigns, even on the left, are targeted at people whoalready exert influence in the political process, namely activists,voters and donors. But the immigration protest was the rare effortthat welcomed the apolitical, who do not usually vote, and those whocannot vote. The rallies and marches drew nonvoters, students andillegal immigrants into their inchoate coalition. And some of thepolitical novices were proficient in organizing technology, even ifthey did not think about it that way.
Keeping all this in mind, think about how this will encourage apolitical individuals to get involved in the political process. This is such a great moment for democracy -- that the netroots can connect people from all over the country, even all over the world, to promote a populist-driven political vision.
When it comes to 2008, especially the November election, the internet is the Democrats' solution as far as finding new voters. If we win the netroots, we will have a Democrat in the White House. Although I respectfully consider James Carville and Paul Begala to be among the greatest political strategists to ever have walked the earth, their time to shine has just about expired. In 2008, the big blogs -- like , , , , and -- each have a better ability to court new voters than Carville or Begala. Smaller blogs like this one (even though I hope that it does not stay small for too long), have a more reduced impact.
The point is that the American political landscape is changing. Blogs impact the political scene a lot more than Washington insiders give them credit. And unless we take advantage of this revolution, progressive groups on Capitol Hill and those seeking office will lose out on a great opportunity.
A study put together by the nonpartisan , which would give undocumented workers a path to citizenship, would actually be a net positive for the U.S. Treasury.
The progressive think-tank CBPP did an analysis of that CBO study, and showed the :
Table 1: Effects of Senate Immigration Bill, 2007-2016 (billions of dollars)
Increases in Income and Payroll Taxes
62.1
Outlays for Refundable Credits
-29.4
Net Effect
32.7
Source: Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation
:
The CBO cost estimates show that, as a group, the new population of legal immigrants would pay more than twice as much in income and payroll taxes as they would receive in refundable credits. In fact, the increase in revenues due to bringing these new filers into the tax system would exceed the total increase in costs for federal benefit programs that CBO projects would result from the legislation (including costs in the Food Stamps, Medicaid, and other federal programs).
Of course, being that the Congressional Budget Office is trusted by both parties, this adds legitimacy to critics that have questioned the conservative Heritage Foundation for recently releasing a faulty statistical report about how the guest-worker program will increase the number of immigrants by 103 million. :
To reach 103 million, Rector "assumes the maximums, pulls out all thestops for every loophole, possibility, and makes some assumptions -some unrealistic - about how many family members will be brought in,"said William Frey, a demographer for the Brookings Institution, acenter-left policy-research center. "It's widely unrealistic. Youcannot assume the maximum numbers for some of the provisions. He(Rector) is pushing it to the extremes."
The Congressional Budget Office says the number will be more like 8 million new immigrants by 2016, not 103 million.
(Maybe it's just me, but I think that I would rather trust the Congressional Budget Office over some conservative think tank that adjusts their facts to fit an already established agenda. Gee, that reminds me of a foreign policy I know!)
Our election system is privately financed in a way that disproportionately benefits incumbents. This is only fitting, considering that lawmakers who would eventually be incumbents themselves made the laws to begin with. Nonetheless, every decade or so there is a populist-driven impulse by voters to clear the slate of incumbents, responding to what they consider to be a combination of bad spending habits, elitism and corruption.
about how that anti-incumbent sentiment will play a factor this November:
But there are signs of broader disaffection. A new WashingtonPost-ABC News poll found that 55 percent of those surveyed said theyare inclined to look around for someone new rather than support theirincumbent members of Congress this fall, the highest level ofanti-incumbency since the 1994 midterm elections that dethronedDemocrats on Capitol Hill.
Oregon pollster Tim Hibbits said thatRepublicans in Congress may be most at risk because they are in themajority but added that Democrats in some states with economic problemsmay suffer as well. "At the federal level, Republicans are in forbetween a bad night and a very bad night" in November, Hibbits said."But at local and state level, whoever is in power in those localitieswhere people are in trouble" could face problems, he said.
Thedefeats of Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Robert C.Jubelirer, Majority Leader David J. Brightbill and at least a dozenother state legislators there stunned the political establishment.Grass-roots protests brought primary challenges to 61 incumbentlegislators, the most since 1980, according to the PhiladelphiaInquirer.
Being a history student myself, it is easy to look for patterns -- or in other words, common variables that produce the same consequences for different historical eras. Yet, for some reason, we never seem to learn from our mistakes. Take Vietnam and Watergate for example. Take the increase in Executive power during the Weimar years in Germany. Take the over-extending of the military by ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and 19th and 20th century Britain. The same patterns keep reoccurring over and over again, and we have especially been seeing examples of that over the last few years. In many ways, this November, the Magna Carta will happen all over again.
The nonpartisan about the effects of the Iraq war:
Using data provided by DOD, GAO found that 9,145 or 5 percent of the 178,664 OEF/OIF servicemembers in its review may have been at risk for developing PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). DOD uses a questionnaire to identify those who may be at risk for developing PTSD after deployment. DOD providers interview servicemembers after they complete the questionnaire. A joint VA/DOD guideline states that servicemembers who respond positively to three or four of the questions may be at risk for PTSD. Further, we reviewed a retrospective study that found that those individuals who provided three or four positive responses to the four PTSD screening questions were highly likely to have been previously given a diagnosis of PTSD prior to the screening. Of the 5 percent who may have been at risk, GAO found that DOD providers referred 22 percent or 2,029 for further mental health evaluations.
Remember, only 178,000 or so were surveyed -- which is less than half of the total number of men and women that have gone to Iraq. But this was not the only part of the GAO report. The main problem that the GAO was trying to put to the forefront was the fact that the Defense Department does not have a good enough system in place to determine which soldiers need to be referred for further evaluations. The report specified:
DOD cannot provide reasonable assurance that OEF/OIF servicemembers who need referrals for further mental health or combat/operational stress reaction evaluations receive them.
This is serious. We are talking about life-long mental conditions here -- mental conditions that deserve to be answered by a system that honors our troops for making a great sacrifice.
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