24 Hours May 15, 2003March 25, 2012 It has come to my attention that there are only 24 hours in a day. This is wreaking havoc with my schedule. Yesterday’s column was too long by half anyway. Please use today to read that half. (Is anyone working on a remake of Fantasia? The Sorcerer’s Apprentice scene with e-mails instead of buckets of water?)
Four Things May 14, 2003February 23, 2017 I had hoped to tell you about the new woman in my life, but I am still writing that, so today I have four completely unrelated things to offer: BARTLETT’S VIA BART BARKER’S BARTLEBY Bartleby, you will recall, was a scrivener. What do you imagine he would have made of this handy link to Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and so much more? (Thanks to Bart ‘Bartleby’ Barker for the link.) UNTROUBLED WATERS Did you know that Dartmouth, which is in New Hampshire, is virtually in Vermont? A short walk? And that Vermont and New Hampshire are kept apart by the Connecticut River? Like, they had to bring in Connecticut to keep the two from coming to blows? How cool is that! You go, little ol’ Nutmeg State! TROUBLED TEXANS So you’ve probably read that the Democrats in the Texas legislature have fled to a Holiday Inn in Oklahoma to deny their colleagues a quorum. This is more than a merry prank, because it goes to the Republican plan to retain and increase control over all three branches of the Federal government. The idea is to redraw the Texas Congressional districts – which were just redrawn two years ago after the 2000 Census – in order to give the Republicans 7 more seats in the United States House of Representatives. “The GOP plan could cement the Republican Party’s hold on power in Washington,” the Los Angeles Times reports in a truly fascinating story (even though you have to register to read it) that gives you some sense of what’s going on here. ‘In a ploy audacious even by the standards of Texas politics,’ the LA Times reports, ‘one of the GOP’s new congressional districts would be composed of two Republican-leaning areas, one north of Austin and one in the Rio Grande Valley – 300 miles away. The two areas would be connected by a mile-wide ribbon of land.’ Even this would be fun and games if there were not so much at stake in the different governing philosophies of the two Parties. One is mainly concerned with cutting government and avoiding taxes on the Best Off at almost any cost; the other takes (I would argue) a more balanced view. Take Texas again (home not long ago to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney), facing a $10 billion budget deficit, and not about to subject its most fortunate citizens to even a penny of sacrifice. Republican leaders in Texas ‘have proposed, among other things, reclassifying 56,000 elderly and disabled people so they are no longer ‘frail’ – making them ineligible for Medicaid,’ the Times reports. Just what the doctor ordered. And ‘an estimated 250,000 children from low-income families would be removed from the rolls of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Money set aside to replace antiquated textbooks in public schools has been cut, and teachers’ health insurance benefits are expected to drop considerably.’ You go, Texas Republicans! If that’s not enlightened leadership, I don’t know what is. FINALLY, IF YOU WERE WONDERING WHERE THE LIBERAL PRESS IS . . . . . . read Paul Krugman. He thinks he knows why it’s largely gone AWOL.
Four Voices: Three Strong, One Weak May 12, 2003February 23, 2017 Michael Kinsley, as usual, says it best. Enjoy – Bill Bennett one more time. (Or, as Harry Mark put it to me in an e-mail: ‘Years ago, as DRUG CZAR, Bennett laughingly dismissed his three-pack-a-day nicotine addiction as no big deal. He also looks like he doesn’t miss too many meals. And he peddles moral hooey at $50K a pop to enable a gambling problem. Virtue? Self-control?’) Greg Palast says it most urgently. Be troubled – could the right wing be as bad as he says? It seems so ungentlemanly to suggest the things he does. We’d rather not think any of these things. But if you read Blinded By the Right – David Brock’s apology for the rightwing conspiracy he was a central player in – it’s no great stretch to credit the deeply troubling allegations in Palast’s book, too. John Snow, our Treasury Secretary, says it most spuriously – all over the Sunday morning talk shows yesterday. Be bearish. I have no transcript to link you to, but here’s what he says: What we need is the biggest possible tax cut, on top of the gigantic 2001 tax cut we already enacted. And no, we shouldn’t be worried about the giant budget deficit. That is something he used to decry. Not now. Now it’s imperative to give multi-millionaires a big tax cut – and average folks, little or nothing – because these multi-millionaires will go out and buy the refrigerators, SUV’s and gardening equipment they’ve been dreaming of but couldn’t afford … and that will spur demand and create jobs. (You know, you can blame our weak economy on business cycles, if that’s what you believe – but on whom do you blame our weak Treasury Secretaries?) Paul Krugman says it over and over again – and thank heavens he does. Even Tim Russert seems finally to be listening. Krugman gets the last word. # PS – Between Kinsley, Palast and Krugman, this is three columns in one, even if I didn’t write any of them. My contract calls for me to take tomorrow off.
Up 63% on a Filibuster May 9, 2003January 22, 2017 Listen. I know a lot of you are annoyed or lose interest when I stray from personal finance. I mean, it’s one thing to stray to write about interesting vegetables, quite another for me to mount my political soap box and decry the Bush economic policies that, I think – but some of you don’t – are just tragically misguided. That’s one reason I do try my best to suggest what I think could be a helpful investment idea from time to time – not that there’s ANY assurance of success. But the little batch of stocks I suggested last July is up 38% or so, and the even littler batch of bio-techs from last September is up 63%, and I can’t find other batches I’ve suggested that have gone down dramatically (please do not be shy about refreshing my selective memory, which I promise to share with the group) . . . and, truthfully, this makes me quite nervous because, as I’ve mentioned in the past, it’s just when one begins to think one is given to occasional spasms of reasonably good judgment, that the market – which is smarter than any of us, believe me – whips around and bites one in the butt. The point is, I’m not insensitive to the views of people like Donald, who wrote me earlier this week, ‘Your columns are beginning to suck.’ But how can I write about vegetables (I still owe you a column on radishes), when I think this country we all love so dearly is taking wrong turn after wrong turn. (We really want to favor the tobacco industry over the desires of 191 nations for world health? We really want to borrow trillions of dollars from future generations to finance tax cuts for people who least need them? We really want to erode the separation of church and state?) It is in that spirit, and for those of you with a little time this weekend and an interest in such things, that I offer you Ralph Naes’s latest memo with regard to the fight for the Judiciary. (Ralph heads People for the American Way.) A lot of people don’t even know this fight is going on (which is fine with the Bushies, believe me), let alone know the details. But the details are compelling, and the outcome will significantly impact the kind of country we become. And judges are appointed for life, so this can’t get fixed for a long, long time once it goes wrong. So here’s Ralph. I have taken the liberty of highlighting in red a few phrases I thought might help to catch your eye. Have a great weekend. May 6, 2003 To: Journalists Fr: Ralph G. Neas Re: GOP Leaders Try to Create Constitutional Cover for Illegitimate Power Play The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights Subcommittee is holding a hearing today “to examine judicial nominations, filibusters, and the Constitution, focusing on when a majority is denied its right to consent.” It appears that the hearing is an effort to create the illusion of legitimacy for an outrageous scheme to eliminate an important check and balance on the administration’s court-packing efforts in advance of future vacancies on the Supreme Court. Republican threats to “go nuclear” and put an end to long-established Senate practice, rules, and precedents are extraordinary in light of the success that President Bush has already had in making his mark on the federal judiciary. In the two years since President Bush named his first nominees to the federal bench, the U.S. Senate has confirmed 120 Bush judges, including 100 who were confirmed with the Senate and the Judiciary Committee under Democratic control. Since Republicans regained control of the Senate this year, Democrats have used the filibuster – a longstanding Senate procedure requiring a supermajority to cut off debate on important topics – to block only two controversial appeals court nominees, while a number of other nominees have been permitted a full floor vote in spite of intense opposition. Amidst the talk of crisis and a broken system, one important fact is being overlooked: there are currently only 49 vacancies in the federal judiciary, less than half of the 111 vacancies that existed when the Democrats took control of the Senate in July 2001. In spite of the rapid approval rate for Bush’s judicial nominees, Republican leaders’ fury that even two nominees have been stopped by Democratic filibusters has led to a series of remarkable efforts to unilaterally change longstanding rules and to abrogate bipartisan agreements in order to undermine the ability of the minority party to provide any real check on the administration’s efforts to create a federal judiciary dominated by committed right-wing ideologues. Perhaps the most potentially far-reaching is the effort to declare the use of the filibuster to be unconstitutional when applied to judicial nominees. The astonishing claim that the use of the filibuster is unconstitutional – although it has been used by Republicans and Democrats alike for decades – is a short-sighted strategy for undermining the Senate’s traditional role as the more deliberative House of Congress and for removing one of the only checks on the abuse of power by the majority Party, with respect to the issue of judicial nominations. The Curious Champions of a Constitutional Right to a Senate Floor Vote It is a remarkable display of hypocrisy for Republican leaders, including senators like Orrin Hatch, to suggest that use of the filibuster to prevent final votes on judicial nominees is unconstitutional. The historical record is clear that the filibuster has been used by both Republicans and Democrats with respect to controversial judicial nominations. In defending a Republican-led filibuster on a judicial nomination in 1994, Hatch himself explained that the filibuster is “one of the few tools the minority has to protect itself and those the minority represents.” Moreover, during the Clinton administration, Senate Republicans blocked dozens of Clinton nominees with much less open and accountable procedures like secret holds. Fully one-third of Clinton’s appeals court nominees from 1995 through 2000 were kept off the bench – many without even a hearing or committee vote – while others were delayed for as long as four years. How can it be constitutional for a committee chair to stop a nominee by refusing to hold a hearing, or for a secret hold by a single Republican senator to prevent a nominee from moving forward, but unconstitutional for 41 Democratic senators to prevent a final vote using a public Senate procedure specifically designed to protect the rights of the minority? It is clear that the answer has nothing to do with the Constitution and everything to do with the politics of power at all costs. It is simply amazing for Sen. Hatch and his colleagues to make this argument with a straight face. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was among those voting against cloture on the nomination of Richard Paez in 2000. Yet now Frist says, “If filibusters are going to be made part of the judicial nominee process, I think you will see increasing discussion over whether the rules should be changed.” Frist and others have even suggested taking the constitutional question to the Supreme Court, a separation of powers nightmare that seems implausible at best. Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has told reporters that he has devised a strategy that could bypass the filibuster and force approval of nominees with only 51 votes, describing his idea as “nuclear.” Although Sen. Rick Santorum has suggested that the Democratic filibuster against Estrada “set a dangerous precedent” and that Democrats have “changed the rules,” it is clear that it is Republicans who are seeking to change the rules and make a dramatic break with history and Senate tradition. Republican Sen. Richard Lugar explained in 1993 that it is “a function of our Constitution that minorities are protected in many, many ways,” and that this is part of the rationale for the continued existence of the filibuster. Some Republicans have wrongly asserted that there has been only one filibuster against a federal judicial nomination, the successful Republican filibuster of Supreme Court nominee Abe Fortas in 1968. In fact, cloture votes have been required to end debate on a number of judicial nominations. According to the Congressional Research Service, cloture motions have been filed and cloture votes held on 14 Court of Appeals nominations since 1980; as recently as 2000, cloture votes were necessary to obtain votes on the nominations of both Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon to the Ninth Circuit. Sen. Bob Smith openly declared he was leading a filibuster, and he described Sen. Sessions as a member of his filibuster coalition. Democrats have also demanded 60 votes for controversial nominees, such as Edward Carnes, who was nominated to the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in 1992. Over the years, there were many other attempted filibusters that did not result in a cloture vote. The current situation – with one party dominating the White House and Congress in spite of a narrowly divided national electorate – demonstrates why our constitutional framework was designed as a system of checks and balances. The filibuster is now virtually the only tool that Senate Democrats have at their disposal to try to force the administration and the Republican Senate majority to engage in bipartisan consultation, compromise, and cooperation on judicial nominations. If a demand for 60 votes is legitimate with respect to legislation that future Congresses can revisit, it is even more appropriate when considering lifetime appointments to powerful positions on the federal judiciary. Historical Revisionism and Bogus Constitutional Theory The primary legal theory being put forward by right-wing legal scholars and activists to support their claims rests on bad logic, bad law, and bad history. Conservative legal pundit Bruce Fein, scheduled to appear at Tuesday’s hearing, is among those arguing that requiring a supermajority to cut off debate on judicial nominations is impermissible. Such an interpretation defies the language of the Constitution and the history of the Senate. In fact, Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution clearly states that each House of Congress would make its own rules. In some areas, the framers of the Constitution did take some matters out of the hands of Congress by requiring, for example, two-thirds of the Senate to approve international treaties. Requiring a majority vote to approve matters is in essence a parliamentary floor, not a ceiling. Nowhere in the Constitution is there a requirement for a simple majority for votes on nominations. In fact, it wasn’t until 1917 that there was any way other than unanimous consent to cut off debate on issues, including judicial nominations, and bring them to a vote. In that year the very first cloture rule was adopted — two thirds of the Senate present and voting required to invoke cloture and force a vote on a measure. For the past 54 years, the Senate has required a super majority of the entire Senate (ranging from 3/5 to 2/3) to bring judicial nominations or legislation to a vote. Never in our history as a nation have we authorized a simple majority to force a vote in the Senate on a judicial nomination or any other matter. There is certainly no justification for doing so now. The Senate was in fact designed to be the more deliberative body, where extended debate would be a check on potential abuses by the party in power. That characteristic of the Senate has often been lauded by conservatives in the past. Contrary to what George Will is suggesting now, in 1993 he wrote, “[T]he Senate is not obligated to jettison one of its defining characteristics, permissiveness regarding extended debate, in order to pander to the perception that the presidency is the sun around which all else in American government – even American life – orbits.” Back then Will also wrote that “Democracy is trivialized when reduced to simple majoritarianism – government by adding machine. A mature, nuanced democracy makes provision for respecting not mere numbers, but also intensity of feeling.” (Washington Post, April 25, 1993). Although most observers consider it unlikely that the Supreme Court would accept a case about internal Senate rules, the Court did uphold the principle of supermajorities in a case involving local voting rules requiring a majority of 60 percent to pass a measure. The Court’s ruling stated: “Certainly any departure from strict majority rule gives disproportionate power to the minority. But there is nothing in the language of the Constitution, our history, or our cases that requires that a majority always prevail on every issue.” Gordon v. Lance, 403 U.S. 1 at 6 (1971) As has been noted earlier, filibusters have been used by both Republicans and Democrats against judicial nominations and many types of legislation. During the Clinton administration, Republican senators filibustered a number of legislative initiatives, including an economic stimulus package, campaign finance reform, lobbying reform, health care reform, striker replacement legislation, and racial justice provisions in a crime bill. Would Republicans now argue that these efforts were unconstitutional because they are not explicitly permitted in the language of the Constitution? The framers of the Constitution showed wisdom in specifying certain matters in which particular super majorities would be required and in all other areas allowing Congress to set its own rules. When Congress moved to create a rule that would create a mechanism to cut off debate – for the first time in 150 years – it did so in a manner that would maintain the Senate’s deliberative role and make it difficult for a narrow majority to abuse its power. Other Examples of GOP Rule Changes and Power Plays Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch is increasingly abusing the power of his chairmanship to flagrantly violate or unilaterally change longstanding committee rules and bipartisan agreements that govern the Judiciary Committee’s deliberative process. It is these actions by Sen. Hatch, not the Democrats’ legitimate use of the Senate’s filibuster procedure, that mark a dramatic break with precedent and an abandonment of a commitment to act fairly and according to mutually agreed-upon procedures. Several of Hatch’s actions also stand in direct contradiction to his own stated principles about how the Judiciary Committee should function. Committee Rule IV One of the most egregious abuses of power occurred on Thursday, February 27, when Hatch violated clear and explicit Judiciary Committee rules that prevent the Committee from moving to a final vote on any matter before the committee without the support of at least one member of the minority party. Over the strenuous objections of several Democratic Senators, Hatch insisted that the rule did not apply to nominations – a specious claim that had never been made before – and that he would call for a final vote on appeals court nominees Deborah Cook and John Roberts, even though no Democrats supported the motion to bring them to a vote. (In a compromise since then, another hearing was held for Roberts; Cook received a vote on the Senate floor without an additional hearing to review her record.) Since then, Hatch has changed his explanation, claiming that Committee Rule IV does not apply to the Committee Chairman. He now claims in essence that the Chairman’s power to call for a vote on a matter is absolute regardless of agreed upon rules of procedure, and that Rule IV is actually a rule that gives members the right to push for a vote that is being delayed by the Chair. Hatch’s claims are demonstrably false. As recently as 1997, in connection with the consideration of the nomination of Bill Lann Lee to be assistant attorney general, Hatch explicitly acknowledged that “[a]bsent the consent of a minority member of the Committee, a matter may not be brought to a vote.” (Transcript of Judiciary Committee meeting of November 13, 1997 at 6) (emphasis added) As Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle wrote to Hatch on March 4, Rule IV “clearly establishes a Committee filibuster right.” Blue Slip Policy Hatch has also changed another fundamental Senate rule regarding judicial nominations. In the past, Hatch has been a fervent supporter of the Senate’s “blue slip” policy, which has allowed home-state senators who object to a judicial nominee to delay action in the Judiciary Committee by not returning a nominee’s “blue slip” to the committee. As American Prospect has noted, “it was Hatch, in 1995, who hardened the blue-slip policy to allow a single senator to block a nomination indefinitely.” Indeed, Sen. Hatch made his blue slip policy explicit in 1998 by stating on the blue slips themselves that “[n]o further proceedings on this nominee will be scheduled until both blue slips have been returned by the nominee’s home state senators.” Now, however, Hatch has apparently declared a new policy saying that even though a senator’s decision not to return a blue slip would be given great weight, it would not be allowed to prevent Hatch from moving nominees he wants to move. “In other words,” says Hatch, “we can go ahead with certain nominees where you might have a withheld blue slip.” Sen. Barbara Boxer has objected to proceeding on controversial nominee Carolyn Kuhl, but Hatch has scheduled a committee vote on the nomination on Thursday, May 8. Stacked Confirmation Hearings Sen. Hatch held a single confirmation hearing featuring three controversial appeals court nominees simultaneously – Jeffrey Sutton, Deborah Cook, and John Roberts – on January 29. Scheduling multiple controversial appeals court nominees on a single day violated a longstanding bipartisan agreement. In the mid-1980s, Senators Strom Thurmond, Joseph Biden, Bob Dole, and Robert Byrd agreed in writing that there would be no more than one controversial nominee scheduled at any one time, an agreement that had been followed under both Republican and Democratic control until Hatch’s packed January 29th hearing. Hatch’s move virtually assured that it would be impossible for senators to prepare thoroughly and for all three nominees to receive sufficient scrutiny. In fact, senators focused their questions on Sutton, meaning that nominees Roberts and Cook were asked very few questions. Hatch did provide another hearing for Roberts, but on May 5, Cook was confirmed by the full Senate, never having been subjected to serious public scrutiny, even though Democratic senators objected to the way she was railroaded through committee with the stacked hearing and Hatch’s violation of Rule IV. Conclusion The effort to create a constitutional objection to the selective use of the filibuster against extremist judicial nominees has no grounding in history or constitutional law. It is a power play that would subvert the Senate’s historical role, undermine its ability to conduct its advise and consent responsibilities, and open the door to further abuses of power by a narrow majority of the Senate. The way to limit the time and energy expended in divisive confirmation battles is not a nakedly partisan power play that would alter the nature of the Senate in order to cement ideological domination of the judiciary for decades to come. The way forward is for the White House to engage in genuine consultation and cooperation on judicial nominations that would result in more mainstream nominees who could win bipartisan support.
But What If You Make $30,000 and Have Two Kids? May 8, 2003February 23, 2017 David Maymudes: ‘I think people are letting W. off too easily by letting him talk so much about the tax reduction you get if you have two kids and exactly the right income level. If you make $30,000 instead of $40,000, with two kids you already basically pay no income taxes, so you get nothing. More importantly, why let him ignore the 7.65% Social Security and Medicare tax? That $40,000 couple is paying $3060 in Social Security taxes. So, yes, they’re getting a tax cut from $4000 to $3000, but it doesn’t sound as impressive that way. (And the $30,000 couple is still paying $2300 with no cut.) Dick Cheney’s $327,000 annual tax savings still sounds pretty impressive, though.’ Jeremy Bronson: ‘I agree with your position on the tax cut, but I wonder whether you’re guilty of the same type of misleading rhetoric as the President when you say the $500B deficit this year will result in $5,000 of additional debt per household. In all candor, don’t the same people who enjoy the benefits of the tax cuts – and who (including their progeny via the estate tax cuts) are gaining an even greater share of the nation’s wealth through the GOP’s policies – end up with the vast majority of the associated long-term tax burden?’ ☞ Yes and no. Say I’m childless (well, I am) and that I save $327,000 each of the next three years (well, I wish), and then I die and leave my money to charity (well, I might). OK. Neither I nor my kids bear any of the burden of the extra $500 billion a year in debt – everyone else’s kids and grandkids do. Yes, rich people will pay more to service it . . . but the poor will pay by virtue of its squeezing out the investment we could otherwise have made in health care and education. No? And if the huge deficits weaken the dollar, as they will, driving up the price of imports, who is worst hurt by that? And if it raises interest rates on car loans and mortgage loans, who is worst hurt by that? Rich people don’t borrow, if they don’t want to – they lend. So I think borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars to lower the tax burden on the wealthy is pretty much what it appears: saddling all of us with debt, while showering most of the rewards on just a very privileged few who least need the largesse. It is a HUGE economic and social mistake, but the President either doesn’t realize that or doesn’t care.
Sanctimony May 7, 2003February 23, 2017 You’ve probably seen this, by Joshua Green, from the Washington Monthly, titled ‘The Bookie of Virtue’ and subheaded: ‘William J. Bennett has made millions lecturing people on morality – and blown it on gambling.’ About $8 million, the article estimates. One imagines the $8 million could have gone to better causes. But it was his money, not ours; and, being a man of virtue – indeed, pretty much owning the virtue franchise – he gets to do with his money what he wants. The problem with Clinton/Gore is that they taxed guys like Bill Bennett too heavily, crimping their ability to invest in new businesses and create jobs.* The rich are so much more prudent and productive with their money than ‘the government.’ Give the government $8 million and they’ll spend it on some fool thing like teachers or Headstart. The good news is that Bill Bennett appears to be just the kind of typical American the Bush tax cuts are geared most generously to assist. I don’t know whether they’ll save Bennett the same $327,000 a year that Bloomberg News Service estimated Dick Cheney will save. Maybe more, maybe less. But however much it comes to, he needs it, he deserves it, and we can be sure he’ll steward it wisely. *Although, unaccountably, 22 million new jobs were somehow created in those years, compared with the more than 2 million lost so far under President Bush. And then there was this from the April 24 Baltimore Sun: Fund-Raiser For GOP Pleads Guilty In Case Of Child Pornography A prominent Republican fund-raiser who once said former President Bill Clinton was “a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation’s young people” pleaded guilty yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court to production of child pornography. Richard Anthony Delgaudio, who was sentenced to two years’ probation before judgment, admitted to taking lewd photographs of a 16-year-old girl he met in East Baltimore’s Patterson Park in 2001. In some of the photos, he was engaged in sex with her, court records show . . . Nor, apparently, was she the only or the youngest girl involved. And, finally, this last week from the Philadelphia Inquirer: Santorum Mailing Angers His Critics Not long after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum sent out a letter asking for money for a nonprofit group lobbying against same-sex marriages. “I know it may sound like a huge exaggeration, particularly in light of the attack on America, but this may truly be the most important letter I ever write you,” Santorum wrote. . . . “If you can only make one contribution to a political organization this year, make your gift to Alliance for Marriage today.” So there you have the priorities of the third-ranking Republican in the Senate leadership. The terrorist attacks were bad – no question – but perhaps the most important thing he’ll ever write you about is the effort to forbid people like Charles and me from having the same economic and civic rights any heterosexual couple can have. The good Senator, one can only presume, sees the world (as we all do) through his own experience. He may be deeply attracted to his male friends, and so, to him, it may appear that if you allowed guys to act on their feelings, they’d all ditch their wives and abandon their children and . . . and . . . and . . . well, incest, polygamy, man on dog . . . anything! My own view is more sanguine. I think most guys are straight and actually want to be with women. I don’t think that respecting gay relationships is going to cause heterosexuals to become homosexuals. Certainly, respecting straight relationships has not caused me to become heterosexual, hard though I tried growing up. Yes, there are more than a few guys – Senator Santorum may be one of them – who could go either way. I don’t envy them that confusion, whatever Woody Allen may say. (He has said, in jest, that bisexuals have double the chance of getting a date on a Saturday night.) But I don’t think they are so legion as to threaten the procreation of this wonderfully diverse, relatively free society of ours . . . with liberty and justice for all.
Few Things Make Me Prouder May 6, 2003January 22, 2017 We have a lot to be proud about as Americans, but few things make me prouder personally than the quality of our tobacco, and our willingness to stand up to countries – 191 of them – that are seeking to keep kids from becoming addicted. A less bold President, having lost so much of the world’s good will in such a short time, might have decided to take the side of the world’s kids instead of the tobacco companies. But not our guy. Makes you proud to be a Republican, proud to be an American – just plain proud. U.S. Wants to Reopen Talks on Global Anti-Tobacco Pact By Alison Langley New York Times Thursday, May 1, 2003 ZURICH, April 30 – The United States asked officials from 191 countries this week to reopen negotiations on a treaty meant to control the sale and use of tobacco and scheduled to be adopted a month from now at the World Health Assembly in Geneva. American negotiators said they could not accept the treaty as long as it included a “no-reservations” clause, which would prevent countries from disregarding any provisions they found unacceptable. The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control would place a comprehensive ban on advertising and promoting tobacco products, except where the prohibition conflicts with national constitutions. It would also impose high taxes on tobacco products and expose companies to liability for their products. It would further require tobacco companies to divulge all the ingredients in their products and print warning labels that cover at least 30 percent of the package . . . . ☞ If you’d like to urge the Bush Administration to stop sabotaging what may be the world’s first public health treaty – click here. (And here, if you can’t wait until tomorrow to read more about Bill Bennett’s addiction to the slots.)
A Few More Questions and the Final Word May 5, 2003February 23, 2017 Rick Neville: ‘The mailer I just received from my Congressman touting the President’s tax cut plan states that ‘a working couple making $40,000 a year will see their taxes reduced from $1,178 to $45.’ Is this accurate? He has a ‘town hall’ meeting scheduled. If his numbers are incorrect I’d like to ask him about it.’ ☞ I assume the numbers are accurate for some couples, depending on the number of kids they have, among other things. Most U.S. households will save much less. But I would ask your Congressman . . . where does all this wonderful money come from? Where does the $327,000 a year Dick Cheney will save on his taxes come from? And the $7 million a year Sandy Weill will save on HIS taxes? Isn’t it true (I would ask him) that we will be borrowing money in order to do this, and so in effect taxing our children (who can’t vote), by saddling them with trillions more in National Debt to service? And isn’t it true (I would ask him) that, to the extent we don’t borrow, we’ll be cutting programs that help kids to make room for these cuts? Because isn’t it true, I would ask him (as security guards were wrestling the microphone out of my hands) that the Congressional Budget Office examined these tax cuts and said they should NOT be expected to provide any dramatic economic growth – that they might even hurt growth? I would ask him whether it’s not true that this year’s budget deficit alone – likely to be over $500 billion – works out to roughly $5,000 more in National Debt per household. (If he says it’s not true, ask him what HE thinks $500 billion divided by 100 million works out to.) Finally (I would ask him), isn’t it true that taking on trillions of dollars more National Debt will weaken the dollar and eventually push up interest rates? Which will cost the $40,000-a-year family more for their car loan and their mortgage payment? The downsides of this don’t much matter to the wealthy. If rates on car loans and mortgage go up, so what? They’ll just buy for cash (and pick up some higher-yielding tax-free municipal bonds). If each family takes on an extra $5,000 in National Debt each year, so what? The wealthy are saving $327,000 a year. THE FNL WRD Dan Albro: ‘The only word with no vowels listed so far was nth. Cwm and crwth have the vowel ‘w.’ After all, vowel is defined in terms of sonorancy value (or lack of constriction, depending on whether you’re defining these things in terms of acoustics or articulation), not what letter of the alphabet you write it with – when we say ‘and sometimes y,’ we mean ‘the glyph called ‘y’ is sometimes used to denote a sound with a sonorancy level in the vocalic range.’ To take Welsh-derived words into account, we should say, I guess, ‘and sometimes w and y.” Rich McAllister: ‘Must have been a bunch of Welsh people around Alabama where I grew up and learned that vowels were ‘A E I O U and sometimes Y and W.”
All Hands on Deck May 2, 2003January 22, 2017 Leave aside the sheer goofiness of this guy who went missing during his term of military service landing on the Abraham Lincoln in a fighter jet . . . and leave aside that this war was won mainly with weapons that the Clinton/Gore administration approved and financed (drones were not built in a day) . . . and never mind the fact that the nation never got to debate anything like the full picture of what we have embarked upon . . . and leave aside, also, the ‘untidiness’ of allowing much of Iraqi culture to be destroyed (don’t miss Frank Rich’s recent report suggesting it would not have required hindsight to have done much better). Leave all that aside. (And join with the President, as we all do, in saluting the courage and competence and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform.) The line that struck me in the President’s speech last night was this one describing Iraq as a place ‘where the dictator built palaces for himself instead of hospitals and schools.’ True enough, and appalling. But think about it. Here we are, short on decent health care and education for millions of our own kids, and the decision is made not to channel more money into health care and education, but to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars so that people earning more than a million dollars a year – who have two or three lavish homes already – can save $327,000 a year on their taxes (just to take the example of Vice President Cheney, let alone the really rich), to build even more elaborate and luxurious homes for themselves. Obviously, the comparison is not direct and the equivalence is not complete. But are we not a country that, more and more, has an extended ‘royal family?’ Not linked by blood so much as golf club memberships and shared hangar space for our private jets? All of which would be great – I have flown in private jets and ohhhhhhhhhhh is it ever cool – if we were bringing everyone else along at the same time. But we’ve stopped doing that. It seems that under Democrats, for the most part, the rich get richer but so does everyone else. Under Republicans, the rich get richer and the poor get laid off. And their kids lose school lunches. Rather than stimulate the economy by borrowing to help states struggle with their worst budget problems since the Depression, and to build great new schools and repair bridges and hire nurses and teachers, we are borrowing to give people who made $5 or $10 million last year a big tax break. Why are we doing that? Monday: A Few More Questions and the Final Word
And Now, A Word Or Two About Money (And Two More Words Without Vowels) May 1, 2003February 23, 2017 Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. — Warren Buffett ☞ And when they are not particularly either? When – as now, and most of the time – they are sort of in the middle? Well, then, I guess: Be patient. (This is not, I will admit, the world’s most helpful advice. Okay, so maybe buy 50 shares of Sony – SNE – now that it’s been marked down to $24.75 from $59.95 in under a year?) # CWM David Morrison: ‘The only commonly used English word with no vowels is NTH.’ Monna Wier: Puzzlemaster Will Shortz, who presents puzzles to listeners on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, last week mentioned CRWTH. It’s a Celtic instrument. The use of the ‘w’ as a vowel, he says, is Welch.’ # WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE? Don Epstein: ‘I was late for work Tuesday because I was reading every word in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Minneapolis Star Tribune about the Wall Street scandals. Most of it was not new information – okay, the research people sold their integrity to obtain higher investment banking fees for their respective banks. We’ve known that for months. ‘But in Tuesday’s Market Place column on the front page of the Times Business Section, there was this: ‘In a newly disclosed tactic, Morgan Stanley and four other brokerage firms paid rivals that agreed to publish positive reports on companies whose shares Morgan and others issued to the public. This practice made it appear that a throng of believers were recommending these companies’ shares. ‘From 1999 through 2001, for example, Morgan Stanley paid about $2.7 million to approximately 25 other investment banks for these so-called research guarantees, regulators said. Nevertheless, the firm boasted in its annual report to shareholders that it had come through investigations of analyst conflicts of interest with its “reputation for integrity” maintained. ‘Among the firms receiving payments for their bullish research on companies whose offerings they did not manage were UBS Warburg and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. UBS received $213,000 and Piper Jaffray, more than $1.8 million.” ‘It’s been a while since I practiced law . . . but doesn’t this take these scandals to a whole new level? Doesn’t this mean there was a ‘conspiracy’ among these banks to defraud the public? I am just floored that this new development is not an enormous news story tonight.’ ☞ Morgan Stanley used to have the best name on the street (and seem to think they still do). But many of us have long argued you’d be better off in index funds or, if you trade stocks directly, reading Barron’s or Forbes and investing via a deep discount broker.