When members of the U.S. Senate voted Wednesday evening to pass an emergency economic stabilization package authorizing the U.S. Treasury to borrow up to $700 billion to buy illiquid mortgages, securities and other assets that are said to be creating instability in the nation's financial anatomy, it simultaneously authorized unrelated expenditures that question the validity of the stabilization package itself.
Take a gander at the following list of unrelated budget provisions tacked onto the measure:
While many of the above measures may be worthwhile or beneficial programs and causes, in my opinion they have no place showing up in this economic stabilization package (or tacked onto any bill for that matter). That all three members of the Senate running for the two highest posts in the land (McCain, Obama, and Biden) voted in favor of this package with all of these entirely unrelated items attached to it, tells me that none of them are serious about changing business as usual in Washington, D.C.
The addition of unrelated "tax extender" legislation and earmarks to legislative measures is, in my opinion, wrong and needs to stop. Transparency isn't just a buzzword. Each and every measure listed above needs to be evaluated on its own merits and deserves its own discussion and deliberation. Yes, that's a timely proposition, but isn't that what our elected officials (supported by government staffers and an informed citizenry) were elected to do?
Like many people, the moment I saw Governor Palin's picture, I immediately thought to myself, "This woman looks an awful lot like Tina Fey from NBC's '30 Rock' and 'Saturday Night Live!'"
Finally, for the first time in years, there's a reason to watch SNL.
Talk about a deadpan impression.
According to the latest Congressional Approval Ratings (secured May 8-11, 2008, by Gallup), the U.S. Congress' approval rating is now tied for the lowest mark ever in Gallup's history of seeking such information. When asked, "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job?" only 18% of Americans indicated they approved.
From Gallup:
With these numbers in mind, why would voters choose to elect a sitting member of Congress as President? Seriously, if you ran a restaurant and went in search of a new general manager to replace the one you currently have (who by the way has an approval rating of his own of that is the lowest in the history of your entire restaurant chain), and I told you that all of your finalists were from the same restaurant--a restaurant that less than 20% of the time satisfied its customers--wouldn't you restart your search?
And for those of you, who think the low approval rating is synonymous with a Democratic Party-controlled Congress, think again. Republican voters and Democrat voters alike are equally dismayed by Congress' performance.
Again, from Gallup:
(Note: If your eyes are as bad as mine, the above chart shows 20% of Republicans approve, versus 16% of Democrats -- average two and that's where Gallup gets its 18% overall approval rating.)
What's the point in mentioning all of this? It's simple... a friend once told me that Benjamin Franklin coined the popular definition of insanity when said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
I ask you... what is not insane about electing a member of Congress to the highest office in the land... a member of Congress, mind you, who has already been elected to serve a term in Congress that they will vacate to fulfill the duties of the office of the President... a member of Congress who right now--at this very moment (and for the last 12 months or so)--has not being doing the very job they were elected to do by the voters in their district because they have instead chosen to vie for the Commander-in-Chief's job instead.
Insanity indeed!
President George W. Bush's legacy -- presented by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann -- in 12 minutes and eight seconds. If you have 12:08, sit back and have a look:
Sadly, I have to agree and couldn't have said it better myself.
For anyone who wants to follow along word-for-word, here's the entire transcript (shoutout to Crooks & Liars for capturing this in its entirety):
Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on two topics a lot of us had foolishly thought, had naively hoped, we would not again have to address… and a third topic nobody thought a president would ever seriously mention in public unless perhaps he’d just been hit in the head with something and was not in full possession of his faculties — how he expressed his “empathy” to the families of the dead in Iraq — by giving up golf.
The President has resorted anew to the sleaziest fear-mongering and mass manipulation of an administration — of a public life — dedicated to realizing the lowest of our expectations.
And he has now applied these poisons to the 2008 presidential election, on behalf of the party at whose center he and Mr. McCain lurk.
Mr. Bush has predicted that the election of a Democratic president could, “eventually lead to another attack on the United States.”
This ludicrous, infuriating, holier-than-thou and most importantly bone-headedly wrong statement came yesterday during an interview with Politico-dot-com and on-line users of Yahoo.
The question was phrased as follows: “If we were to pull out of Iraq next year, what’s the worst that could happen, what’s the doomsday scenario?”
The President replied: “Doomsday scenario, of course, is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States.
The biggest issue we face is — it’s bigger than Iraq — it’s this ideological struggle against cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives.”
Mr. Bush, at long last, has it not dawned on you that the America you have now created, includes ‘cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives’?’
They are those in, or formerly in, your employ, who may yet be charged some day with war crimes.
Through your haze of self-congratulation and self-pity, do you still have no earthly clue that this nation has laid waste to Iraq to achieve your political objectives?
‘This ideological struggle,’ Mr. Bush, is taking place within this country.
It is a struggle between Americans who cherish freedom — ours and everybody else’s — and Americans like you, sir, to whom freedom is just a brand name, just like “Patriot Act” is a brand name or “Protect America” is a brand name.
But wait, there’s more.
You also said “Iraq is the place where al Qaeda and other extremists have made their stand — and they will be defeated.”
They made no “stand” in Iraq, sir. You allowed them to assemble there!
As certainly as if that were the plan, the borders were left wide open by your government’s farcical post-invasion strategy of ‘they’ll greet us as liberators.’
And as certainly as if that were the plan, the inspiration for another generation of terrorists in another country was provided by your government’s farcical post-invasion strategy of letting the societal infra-structure of Iraq dissolve, to be replaced by an American Vice-Royalty enforced by merciless mercenaries who shoot unarmed Iraqis and then evade prosecution in any country, by hiding behind your skirts, sir.
Terrorism inside Iraq is your creation, Mr. Bush!
It was a Yahoo user who brought up the second topic upon whose introduction Mr. Bush should have passed, or punted, or gotten up and left the room claiming he heard Dick Cheney calling him.
“Do you feel,” asked an ordinary American, “that you were mis-led on Iraq?”
“I feel like — I felt like, there were weapons of mass destruction. You know, “mislead” is a strong word, it almost connotes some kind of intentional — I don’t think so, I think there was a — not only our intelligence community, but intelligence communities all across the world shared the same assessment. And so I was disappointed to see how flawed our intelligence was.”
Flawed.
You, Mr. Bush, and your tragically know-it-all minions, threw out every piece of intelligence that suggested there were no such weapons.
You, Mr. Bush, threw out every person who suggested that the sober, contradictory, reality-based intelligence needed to be listened to, fast.
You, Mr. Bush, are responsible for how “intelligence communities all across the world shared the same assessment.”
You and the sycophants you dredged up and put behind the most important steering wheel in the world propagated palpable nonsense and shoved it down the throat of every intelligence community across the world and punished anybody who didn’t agree it was really chicken salad.
And you, Mr. Bush, threw under the bus all of the subsequent critics who bravely stepped forward later to point out just how much of a self-fulfilling prophecy you had embraced, and adopted as this country’s policy — in lieu of, say, common sense.
The fiasco of pre-war intelligence, sir, is your fiasco.
You should build a great statue of yourself turning a deaf ear to the warnings of realists, while you are shown embracing the three-card monte dealers like Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.
That would be a far more fitting tribute to your legacy, Mr. Bush, than this presidential library you are constructing as a giant fable about your presidency, an edifice you might as claim was built from Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction because there will be just as many of those inside your presidential library as there were inside Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Of course if there is one over-riding theme to this president’s administration it is the utter, always-failing, inability to know when to quit when it is behind.
And so Mr. Bush answered yet another question about this layered, nuanced, wheels-within-wheels garbage heap that constituted his excuse for war.
“And so you feel that you didn’t have all the information you should have or the right spin on that information?”
“No, no,” replied the President. “I was told by people, that they had weapons of mass destruction…”
People?
What people?
The insane informant “Curveball?”
The Iraqi snake-oil salesman Ahmed Chalabi?
The American snake-oil salesman Dick Cheney?
“I was told by people that they had weapons of mass destruction, as were members of Congress, who voted for the resolution to get rid of Saddam Hussein. And of course, the political heat gets on and they start to run and try to hide from their votes.”
Mr. Bush — you destroyed the evidence that contradicted the resolution you jammed down the Congress’s throat, the way you jammed it down the nation’s throat.
When required by law to verify that your evidence was accurate, you simply re-submitted it, with phrases amounting to “See, I done proved it,” virtually written in the margins in crayon.
You defied patriotic Americans to say “The Emperor has no clothes” — only with the stakes (as you and the mental dwarves in your employ put it) being a “mushroom cloud over an American city.”
And as a final crash of self-indulgent nonsense, when the incontrovertible truth of your panoramic and murderous deceit has even begun to cost your political party seemingly perpetual congressional seats in places like North Carolina and — last night — Mississippi, you can actually say with a straight face, sir, that for members of Congress “the political heat gets on and they start to run and try to hide from their votes” - while you greet the political heat and try to run and hide from your presidency — and your legacy — 4,000 of the Americans you were supposed to protect, dead in Iraq, with your only feeble, pathetic answer being, “I was told by people that they had weapons of mass destruction.”
Then came Mr. Bush’s final blow to our nation’s solar plexus, his last re-opening of our common wounds, his last remark that makes the rest of us question not merely his leadership or his judgment but his very suitably to remain in office.
“Mr. President,” he was asked, “you haven’t been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?
“Yes,” began perhaps the most startling reply of this nightmarish blight on our lives as Americans — on our history.
“It really is. I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died, to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as — to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”
Golf, sir?
Golf sends the wrong signal to the grieving families of our men and women butchered in Iraq?
Do you think these families, Mr. Bush — their lives blighted forever — care about you playing golf?
Do you think, sir, they care about you?
You, Mr. Bush, let their sons and daughters be killed.
Sir, to show your solidarity with them - you gave up golf?
Sir, to show your solidarity with them — you didn’t give up your pursuit of this insurance-scam, profiteering, morally and financially bankrupting war.
Sir, to show your solidarity with them — you didn’t even give up talking about Iraq — a subject about which you have incessantly proved without pause or backwards glance, that you may literally be the least informed person in the world?
Sir, to show your solidarity with them, you didn’t give up your presidency?
In your own words — “solidarity as best as I can” — is to stop a game? That is the “best” you can?
4,000 Americans give up their lives and your sacrifice was to give up golf!
Golf.
Not “gulf” — golf.
And still it gets worse.
Because it proves that the President’s unendurable sacrifice, his unbearable pain, the suspension of getting to hit a stick with a ball, was not even his own damned idea.
“Mr. President, was there a particular moment or incident that brought you to that decision, or how did you come to that?”
“I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life. And I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it’s just not worth it any more to do.”
Your one, tone-deaf, arrogant, pathetic, embarrassing gesture, and you didn’t even think of it yourself?
The great Bushian sacrifice — an Army private loses a leg, a Marine loses half his skull, four thousand of their brothers and sisters lose their lives, you lose golf… and they have to pull you off the golf course to get you to just do that?
If it’s even true…
Apart from your medical files, which dutifully record your torn calf muscle and the knee pain which forced you to give up running at the same time — coincidence, no doubt — the bombing in Baghdad which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello of the U-N… and interrupted your round of golf, was on August 19th, 2003.
Yet there is an Associated Press account of you playing golf as late as Columbus Day of that year — October 13th — nearly two months later.
Mr. Bush, I hate to break it to you, six-and-a-half years after you yoked this nation and your place in history to the wrong war, in the wrong place, against the wrong people but the war in Iraq is Not. About. You.
It is not, Mr. Bush, about your grief when American after American comes home in a box.
It is not, Mr. Bush, about what your addled brain has produced in the way of paranoid delusions of risks that do not exist, ready to be activated if some Democrat, and not your twin Mr. McCain succeeds you.
The war in Iraq — your war, Mr. Bush — is about how you accomplished the derangement of two nations, and how you helped funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to lascivious and perennially thirsty corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater, and how you sent 4,000 Americans to their deaths — for nothing.
It is not, Mr. Bush, about your golf game!
And, sir, if you have any hopes that next January 20th will not be celebrated as a day of soul-wrenching, heart-felt Thanksgiving, because your faithless stewardship of this presidency will have finally come to a merciful end, this last piece of advice:
When somebody asks you, sir, about Democrats who must now pull this country back from the abyss you have placed us at…
When somebody asks you, sir, about the cooked books and faked threats you foisted on a sincere and frightened nation…
When somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead…
This advice, Mr. Bush…
Shut the hell up!
CNN is reporting that Presidential contender Barack Obama told CNN's Wolf Blitzer (in an interview scheduled to air later today on "The Situation Room") that the most important thing he could do as President of the United States would be to "deal with Iraq and the threat of al Qaeda in Afghanistan while improving our influence around the world."
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Obama running for the Democratic nomination? Sure sounds like a Republican to me.
From CNN:
Obama said he thinks the United States' influence around the world has been diminishing.
Really. Ya think?
"The world wants to see the United States lead. They've been disappointed and disillusioned over the last seven, eight years." ~ Barack Obama"I think there is still a sense everywhere I go that if the United States regains its sense of who it is and our values and our ideals, that we will continue to set the tone for a more peaceful and prosperous world." ~ Barack Obama
Did he just say "the world wants to see the United States lead?" Please, not in his wildest dreams does the rest of the world want the U.S. to lead. I have friends living all over the globe--from Germany to Australia and from India to Ireland--and from everything I have heard for the last 25 years, the rest of the world just wants to be left alone, isn't looking for a hero, and cannot stand the role the United States' plays in foreign affairs, environmental stewardship, and capital markets.
The only countries with a need for the United States to lead are those overrun by warlords, absolute dictatorships, and natural disasters, and even then, it's not the countries themselves that often want our help... instead, it's the citizenry on the ground/in country that need us to lead. The people of the Sudan, for instance, readily come to mind, as do the famished and malnourished in Chad, Ethiopia, Bolivia, the occupied Palestinian territories, and elsewhere.
More from Obama (again, from CNN):
Americans want to succeed, he said, "but we're going to have to make some investments and ensure that the dynamism and the innovation of the American people is released." "It's very hard for us to do that when we're spending close to $200 billion a year in other countries, rebuilding those countries instead of focusing on making ourselves strong," he said.
Not that I'm abdicating an entirely black or white approach to political leadership, but unless CNN just did a really awful job of editing Obama's interview, it sure sounds like the candidate is trying to be all things to all people. From that latest quote, he sounds like a Democrat.
When asked to respond to John McCain's supporters who have said Obama is not ready to be commander in chief, Obama said he thinks what people are looking for is "good judgment."
"I think I've consistently displayed the kind of judgment that the American people are looking for in the next president." ~ Barack Obama
Really? Seriously? Do you call ignoring your responsibilities as an elected member of the U.S. Senate just so you can run for higher office "good judgment"? I certainly do not, and to everyone else out that thinks there's noting wrong with an elected official running for another office other than their own while still in office, it's time to get your head out of the sand and get a good whiff of the political halitosis that's mucking up the very air we breath. These people will say anything to get elected, including the absurd, like the rest of the world wants the United States to lead.
Aside from the people I already mentioned, the only other people who want to see the United States position as a world power full restored are those U.S. citizens who live in the past and hold onto the notion that we as a people are somehow better than everyone else manning the globe. It's time those people and our political leaders face facts. The world's a different place today than it was five, 10, 15 and 25 years ago, and it's going to be different tomorrow than it was today. Living in the past--or making public statements to appeal to those who do--is foolish.
Last week, without a lot of hubbub, the United States Congress served up a pay raise for itself. Yes, you heard that correctly. During a time in our country's history when we're spending billions upon billions of dollars oversea, all the while we have unbalanced budgets here at home, our elected officials have decided they should be handsomely rewarded for their near record-low approval ratings.
Without any public hearings or even so much as an open vote on the floor of the chamber where they do their business, members of U.S. House of Representatives grabbed for themselves another $4,400.00 per year, boosting their base salary to $170,000.00 per year, a level significantly higher than the median household income here in the United States ($46,326.00). And thatís not counting the perks: They receive an average annual pension of $60,972.00, free flights and other transit subsidies, gym memberships, choice parking spots in DC and at airports, just to name a few.
Under our current laws, members of Congress automatically receive a cost of living adjustment, unless of course Congress stops its own increase. The dance is set up this way so the pay hike itself never gets a direct up or down vote. And this year, both parties delivered majorities and a 244-181 vote stopped a move to block the pay increase.
Opposing the pay raise plays well with taxpayers. So well that during last yearís election, Democrats refused to take an approved pay raise and then bludgeoned Republican lawmakers who had voted for it. However, that was in an election year. This year, with no election on the immediate horizon, both parties participated in killing an effort led by Democratic Representative Jim Matheson of Utah to get a direct vote to block the pay increase. Next, the U.S. Senate takes up the hike and is expected to follow the lead of the House of Representatives and let the raise go through.
The pay increase matters because it sends a clear message to tax payers: Members of the United States Congress are out of touch... they are more interested in fattening their own wallets than helping tax payers who are struggling to balance their checkbooks. To be clear, I am not saying that members of Congress shouldnít ever receive a raise, but there needs to be open and honest discussion about whether or not a pay hike is justified.
There is no question that our elected leaders need to be adequately compensated, but a pay raise should be based on performance, just as it is for you and me. Congress should answer to whether it reached its objectives in a fiscally responsible manner, for example. We the taxpayers are Congressís bosses, and with average approval ratings at around 25 percent, it is clear to me that the boss does not think Congress is performing very well. For elected officials to not allow a vote on this matter is yet another example of why I firmly believe the nationally-focused legislative process in this country is broken beyond belief.
In a telephone interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Friday, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said President George W. Bush has eliminated the line between church and state and has abandoned Americaís basic values:
"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history. The overt reversal of Americaís basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including those of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me."
In response, White House spokesman Tony Fratto on Sunday said, "I think he [Carter] is proving to be increasingly irrelevant with these kinds of comments."
Maybe I'm missing something here, but if Carter was irrelevant, wouldn't the White House simply choose not to comment on his statements (sort of like I choose not to read anything about an anorexic hotel heiress' latest run in with the law or a past his prime quarterback's latest comments about how he wants to be traded one day and not the next)?
The actor Richard Dreyfuss (think Jaws, Mr. Holland's Opus, and What About Bob) spent the last two years studying civics and democracy at St Antonyís College at the University of Oxford (England). This past Friday night, Dreyfuss appeared on the season finale of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, where his words literally silenced Maher and his usually uproarious audience:
Bill Maher (speaking of President Bush): And you think he should be impeached? I mean, what would that get you? Cheney as President?Richard Dreyfuss: The two reasons that one would argue against impeachment are the Vice President and the Democratic Congress. But I'm not in favor of impeachment. I am in favor of the process. And I believe that unless the society stands against certain things, they will have endorsed certain things. Like torture, leaving the Geneva Convention...
Bill Maher: Right. That's well said.
Richard Dreyfuss (continuing): ...and lying to the Congress about the reasons for war. And once the Republicans are placed in the position of having to endorse torture, you've got a bad problem on your hands. And we do not realize that this is not about impeachment; it's about the other branches of the government doing their duty so that you don't hand off to a liberal or a conservative--the President--swollen powers when no one ever turns power away. No one ever says, "Oh no thank you - we're not going to use that." And so whoever gets to be President will use the power handed to this President. And we will rue that day unless we stand in some way against that, even in a minority report. Even if we; if you lose an impeachment hearing--whoever "we" are--then at least you have a body that says we stand against these things. And unless you do that, then you're for them.
Later in the show, Dreyfuss added the following (warning, it's long but well worth the read):
Richard Dreyfuss: That's the constancy that you can learn. You can actually learn the constancy of curiosity, and the constancy of outreach. You can learn that it is ok to keep asking the questions, and to be dissenters. And if you don't...if you're not taught it...then you don't know it. But we owe ourselves and the United States that we will pass off to our children to re-learn the tools of reason, logic, clarity, dissent, civility, and debate. And those things are the non-partisan basis of democracy, and without them, you can kiss this thing goodbye.And what happens now in this partisan-addicted country of ours is that Democrats are afraid that if they send their kids to civics classes they might not come back Democrats. And Republicans are afraid their kids won't come back Republicans. But civics--the expertise needed to understand western enlightenment and civil liberties--is not something you're born with; you have to learn it.
And we teach our kids what we want them to know and we don't teach them what we don't want them to know. And that's not a conspiracy...that's human nature. And you have to---WE have to remember--that unless we teach the ideas that make America a miracle in government (a miracle that everyone knows is a miracle); unless we teach what that means, then it will go away in your kids' lifetime. And we will be a fable. We will be a tale told about this place that used to stand up for blah, blah, blah.
You have to teach it. You have to find the time and creativity to teach it in school. And if you don't, then you will lose it to fundamentalists of any stripe; you will lose it to stupidity; you will lose it to the darkness. And what this country represents is a tiny twinkle of light in a history of oppression and darkness and cruelty, and if it lasts for more than our lifetime or our kids' lifetime it is only due to the fact that we put some effort into teaching what it is.
The ideas of America--the idea of opportunity, mobility, freedom of thought, freedom of assembly--and if you don't teach it, it will go away and in the middle of the night; and when the towers fall, we will not say "what am I responsible for?" We will say, "Tell us what to do!"
Here, here...while I've never been one to side with Hollywood's self-anointed elite, Dreyfuss is right...in every single part of American life, would could all stand for a little more reason, logic, civility, dissent and debate!
I just heard that India successfully test-fired a medium-range nuclear-capable missile today, just three days after its neighbor and rival, Pakistan, did the exact same thing. Where's the self-righteous indignation and outrage that the United States has become so popular for expressing and showing when tests such as these occur? Why, two or three days ago, didn't the U.S. come out in opposition to Pakistan's test, and will it say anything about India's? Had it been a North Korean or Iranian missile launch, much of the world--led by the U.S.--would be up in arms (no pun intended).
Why is it okay for countries that have already developed nuclear capabilities to continue to pursue their defense ambitions, but it's not okay for all the other nations on Earth to do the same? (Interestingly enough, India and Pakistan have never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, whereas Iran and North Korea have.)
I just took a quiz that was supposed to help me self-select whether I'm informed enough to vote in Tuesday's election. My results:
According to the results of my test, I "should definitely vote" (I scored 342 out of 350 possible points, or 97.71 percent). The only question I missed--in case anyone's interested in taking the test and comparing scores--was #53, which cost me eight points.
DontVote.org was started by Internet entrepreneur Philip Ferreira to combat the "Get out the Vote" movement that he says is pushed by organizations that would like to increase the number of uneducated voters to help their cause. According to the site, DontVote.org encourages people to vote, but only after they have educated themselves on the policies and individuals for which they are voting.
That being said, I do not agree with how DontVote.org goes about testing one's ability to know enough to vote. Wanna see why? Take dontvote.org's test for yourself.
While dontvote.org may be well and good for the MySpace crowd, a much better site is the AARP's DontVote.com (that's dot com, not org), where you can select your respective state and receive information on state and national races, find districts, and register to vote. Additionally, visitors to DontVote.com can view the AARP Votersí Guide, which presents national, state, and local candidatesí unedited responses on key issues.
In yesterday's online edition of the Indianapolis Star, Indiana House of Representatives' Speaker of the House--Brian Bosma--is quoted as saying that he will fight ìby all legal meansî necessary a recent U.S. Federal District Judge's ruling that the prayers opening the daily sessions at the Indiana House of Representatives must be nondenominational and may not advance any one religion in particular. In Bosma's own words...
We will find a way to have prayer within the order in one fashion or another.
As the Star previously reported, in his late-November ruling, Judge David Hamilton did NOT ban the offering prayers in the Indiana House of Representatives. Rather, what Hamilton ruled, based on a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision setting very specific boundaries on legislative prayer, was that anyone chosen to give an invocation inside of the House of Representative must be instructed in advance not to do so with language that invokes any one faith.
In other words, no more "In the name of [insert deity here] we pray." Seems fair enough to me (as it does, I mght add, to every other reasonable person I've spoken to about this issue).
Despite this fact, Bosma tells the Indianapolis Star that the Indiana Attorney Generalís office--at his insistence--will file procedural motions asking Judge Hamilton to reconsider his order and temporarily suspend enforcement of the order while his appeals are in play. In addition, Bosma tells the Star, state attorneys will give notice that the State of Indiana intends to file an appeal with the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.
Okay, so if I understand this correctly, taxpayer dollars are going to be applied towards a lawsuit aimed at allowing people to invoke Jesus, Allah, Brahma, Shiva, and Moses when prayers are given during daily sessions of the state's House of Representatives? Come on, is this Bosma guy for real? Is this the type of work his constituents elected him to do... spending taxpayer dollars on retributive justice, especially at a time when the state's coffers are predicted to come up around $75 million short in tax revenues over the next year-and-a-half? Give us all a break, would ya, Bosma!
As someone said to me recently, no one is attempting to take away anyone's right to practice his or her religion. That's nothing but a red herring of an argument because it distorts what the real issue is here. When the Indiana House of Representatives sanctions a prayer of any kind, it IS an implicit sanction of that particular religion verses another. One should not be forced to walk out of a legislative chamber, ever, when in the room expressly to do one's job, which is, after all, to legislate, not pray.
If it is so important for people to pray before the beginning of a state legislative session, I suggest they do so in private. No one is trying to stop any member of the House from having a connection with his or her spiritual and/or religious leader. Pray in the car on the way in; pray silently while walking into the room where, after all, the work of state government is supposed to be of primary focus. And for Jesus-Allah-Brahma-Shiva-and-Moses' sake, please stop spending valuable resources, i.e., tax dollars and an under-staffed Attorney Generalís office, to push the point any further. The State of Indiana has bigger fish to fry (no pun intended).
Yesterday morning, while watching NBC's "Meet The Press", I'm stunned, but in an ' I told-you-so' sort of way, by what Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is saying. Here it is, in his words:
TIM RUSSERT (interviewer): Let's talk about the Democrats and some of the polling data. Congressional Democrats have the same priorities as you: yes, 26 percent; no, 54 percent. So the Democrats aren't perceived as the answer. And look at this, Chairman Dean. We asked independent voters: Do you believe that Democrats have a clear message, a vision for the future? Fifty-two percent of independent swing voters say no. One in four Democrats say you have no clear vision, no agenda, no clear message. Joe Trippi, your former campaign manager said, "Obviously, the results from Election Night are great for us Democrats. But given the GOP's problems, the tightness of the results suggest that people aren't happy with either party right now. Democrats have got to push an alternative agenda."DR. HOWARD DEAN (Chairman of the Democratic National Committee): We have an alternative agenda. We made it very clear. We want a strong national security based on telling the truth to our people at home, our soldiers and our allies. We want jobs in America that'll stay in America, and we believe that renewable energy is one of the areas where we can do that. We want a health-care system that covers everybody, just like 36 other countries in the world. We want a strong public education system. And most of all, we want honesty back in government. I think that's a pretty good agenda.
Okay, if it's all right with you, I'm going to interrupt here for a moment. The Chairman of the DNC thinks a pretty good alternative agenda for his party is to promote telling the truth, keeping jobs here in the States, promoting renewable energy, health care for all, and strong public education. I'm sorry, but that's weak, weak, weak. Every candidate for elected office in this country for nearly the last 50 years, be they either Republicans or Democrats, has had those very same items on their 'agenda' too. But I digress...
TIM RUSSERT: But those are words that will appeal to people. But when you go behind them, for example, what is the Democratic position on Iraq? Should we withdraw troops now? What do the Democrats stand for?
Okay, well this should be good. Hit him with it, Howard! Give him the specifics. Represent!
HOWARD DEAN: Tim, first of all, we don't control the House, the Senate or the White House. We have plenty of time to show Americans what our agenda is and we will long before the '06 elections.
Gazed look on my face.. deer staring into headlights. Did he really just say that? Russert's gotta follow-up on that answer with something good, doesn't he? I sure hope so... let's see what he comes back with:
TIM RUSSERT: But there's no Democratic plan on Social Security. There's no Democratic plan on the deficit problem. There's no specifics. They say, "Well, we want a strong Social Security. We want to reduce the deficit. We want health care for everyone," but there's no plan how to pay for it.
Way to go, Tim. My point exactly. I've been saying this very same thing for years, and not just about the Democrats either. Okay, surely Dean's going to clarify his party's position here. Clearly, he has to give some specifics, doesn't he? Wait for it, wait for it... here it comes...
HOWARD DEAN: Right now it's not our job to give out specifics.
Holy Crap... he didn't just say that, did he? Gazed look on my face.. deer staring further into headlights Wait, wait, there's more...
HOWARD DEAN: We have no control in the House. We have no control in the Senate. It's our job is to stop this administration, this corrupt and incompetent administration, from doing more damage to America. And that's what we're going to do.
And there you have it folks, straight from the mouth of the DNC Chairman... the Democratic National Committee's job is not to propose sensible solutions or to work with Republicans to actually solve problems and make life better for all U.S. citizens in the here and now. Quite the opposite in fact. The Democratic National Committee Chairman says his party's job is stopping the Republicans.
They're wrong and we're right, and that my friends is what politics--at least at the national level--has become all about. They're wrong, I'm right. I'm right and they are wrong. Forget substance. Forget even the notion of working together to make this a better place to live.
TIM RUSSERT: But is it enough for you to say to the country, "Trust us, the other guy's no good. We'll do better, but we're not going to tell you specifically how we're going to deal with Iraq."HOWARD DEAN: We will. When the time comes, we will do that.
TIM RUSSERT: When's the time going to come?
HOWARD DEAN: The time is fast-approaching. And I outlined the broad outlines of our agenda. We're going to have specific plans in all of these areas.
TIM RUSSERT: This year?
HOWARD DEAN: In 2006.
Shame on you, Howard Dean. Members of your party were elected to work now, not starting in 2006. Is this the best the Democrats can do? Said under my breath...And some people wonder why some people choose not to vote in this country!
If you're a registered Democrat, are you pleased with how your party leadership is operating? If you're a Republican, I bet you're licking your lips right about now, aren't you?
In the end, we all lose out when crap like this is allowed to go on. When will our elected and appointed officials get that it's not about who is right and who is wrong?
The Associated Press is reporting this morning that Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court. Quoting President George W. Bush, the AP states President Bush reluctantly accepted Miers' decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he fully supported her nomination and did not want her to step down.
The AP is also reporting that the Bush Administration is blaming Miers' withdrawal on calls within the U.S. Senate for the release of internal White House documents that the administration had insisted were protected by executive privilege.
In other news, the President announced today that he intends to nominate another personal friend and 'pioneer' financial contributor to his election campaigns--Marilyn Ware, of Pennsylvania--to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Finland. Ms. Ware, who currently serves as Chief Executive Officer for the Ware Family Office, a private company which designs and initiates business ventures and investment opportunities for the sole benefit of her own family, has no direct experience with working in Finland or with Finish authorities (nor do I suspect she even speaks enough Finnish or Swedish). Ms. Ware previously served as Chairman of Board of American Water Works Company, and in 2002 was appointed by the President to serve as a member of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, a group appointed by the President to provide him with advice on the security of information systems for critical infrastructure supporting banking and finance, transportation, energy, manufacturing, and emergency government services. Ware also holds a seat on the Board of Directors of the CIGNA Corporation, where she chairs the Corporate Governance Committee, and is a member of the Board of Directors of IKON Office Solutions.
Oh, and in case you're wondering... in the last few years alone, Ware, along with her mother--Marian S. Ware--have donated over $350,000.00 in soft money to the Republican National Committee.
I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday afternoon using Skype (very cool and useful technology, by the way). Christoph--who was one of my roommates when I lived in Boulder, Colorado, and now lives in Muenchen, Germany--asked me the following question:
"Why did so many people vote for Bush a year ago, and now why do so many people feel he's doing a bad job, and why is he still in office?"
My answer? "Oh, it's quite simple actually... politics in the USA is a lot like pizza.î
"What's that supposed to mean," Christoph asked.
Well, think of the people who voted for George W. Bush as being the type of folks who like meat toppings on their pizza, while those who voted for John Kerry are strict vegetarians, opting instead for veggie only toppings on theirs.
Now, while it's true that more voters opted for the meat toppings in the last round of elections--and that nearly a year later the meat pizza they ordered doesn't taste as good as the one they'd previously ordered--being meat eaters, these citizen voters are choosing to stick with the meat topping.
You see, no matter how rancid their meat pizza may taste or how sick it may make them or the people they feed it to, to the meat toppers, all they can bring themselves to do is call the waiter over and complain about the taste of their pizza. Never, hardly ever, does it occur to them to actually order another type of pizza, especially a vegetarian one. Even though the vegetarian pizza may be better for them (and the rest of us, I might add), the majority of people who make the decision about what pizza topping should be ordered, like the meat pizza so much that they're willing to eat it slice after slice after slice, inducing massive doses of food poisoning, day after day after day after day.
So...
- Why did so many people vote a Bush a year ago? Because, simply stated, they like meat pizza. Also, it didn't help vegetarian's cause any that it didn't give the voters a compelling reason to order it instead of the meat pizza.
- Why do so many people feel Bush is doing a bad job now? Because they're finally experiencing the symptoms of food poisoning... mainlyÖ nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dizziness (lots of dizziness), fainting, rapid heart rate, and of course, diarrhea.
- Why is President Bush still in office? Because pizza lovers have an inherent need to be right about, well, everything, especially the toppings they choose for their pizza. If they get to be right, that means everyone who disagrees with them gets to be wrong.
Right verses wrong, that's how it works here in the USA, and it's not just the meat eaters who play this game. The vegetarian's do the exact same thing... they hold press conference after press conference complaining about how bad the meat toppings are for you, hardly ever acknowledging proteinís role in a well rounded diet.
If you ask me, Christoph, US citizens eat way too much pizza, both of the meat and vegetarian varieties. For some reason, we're committed in our belief that two toppings--both of which are on extreme opposite sides of the menu--are all that we need to choose from. God forbid we choose to add low-calorie options to the menu like salads and soups, or more heart-healthy choices like fish and chicken.
Here in the USA, peopleís eyes are bigger than their plates, and regardless of how sick or overweight they may become, voters have been conditioned to believe that they absolutely have to finish what's on their plates.
Ami over at Catholic Democrats just left the following comment on last Monday's post:
I'm eager to hear what your other contacts said. I can't really have an educated opinion about this candidate without more information, so I appreciate your efforts to get us some, Mikal. Thanks.
To recap... Last week, upon hearing of the President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to fill Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, I contacted a few well-connected Texas-based friends (all of whom who work in the legal profession--and because of their jobs/posts, probably know Miers' or know of her in ways that the normal everyday American wouldn't) to see what each thought of the Miers' nomination.
As I wrote last Monday, one friend--a former president of the Houston Bar Association and once a partner in a firm where Miers worked--shared that he had indeed personally worked with her, liked her, and felt that despite the fact that her connections to Bush (she has previously served as his personal lawyer) potentially calls into question her ability to remain unbiased on certain matters, he felt she was probably a good choice. Not necessarily a ringing endorsement, but it's something.
Another friend--this one a Senior Counsel for a large Dallas-based law firm who spent five years as the City of Dallas' Chief Prosecutor--has also weighed in. He writes:
She's an interesting individual. As has come out in the papers and blogs by now, she made a lot of political concessions in order to be on the Dallas City Council. These concessions will anger the right wing. But she's a pretty good lawyer, as far as anyone that I've met who knows her says. Did you see Ann Coulter's Blog on Miers, by the way). My goodness. Enjoy.
If it helps to know, both of the lawyers who have thus far offered an opinion on Miers are pretty liberal. The Dallas-based attorney struggled with his decision to leave the City of Dallas and go to work for a big law firm. In his own words... A lot more money, and I still feel a need to apologize to my secretary for giving her work. The other lawyer, the first one to weigh in on Miers, does a great deal of pro-bono work for not-for-profit adventure-based organizations like Outward Bound, and has been dubbed by Outside Magazine the Dean of the outdoor legal community.
Calling her the one person who stood out as exceptionally well-suited to sit on the highest court, President Bush today nominated Harriet Miers to fill Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's soon-to-be-vacated seat on United States Supreme Court. Curious to know more about Ms. Miers, I contacted three friends--all of whom work in the legal profession in Texas (two are lawyers, one's a judge), and who I suspect personally know or have worked alongside the nominee in one respect or another--just to see what their responses would be to these two very simple questions...
1. What do you know about Harriet Miers?
2. What do you think of her?
Reply #1 (from a well-connected Houston-based attorney who I used to work with):
I liked her, and even worked with her a bit. She was an officer of the State Bar, as well, when I worked on that Board. Probably a good choice. Her history as Bush's personal lawyer seems to raise some potential conflict issues but that's for someone else to work out. She's not as conservative as, and she's smarter than, some he might have selected.
My other contacts haven't replied as of yet, but I suspect each will offer up an opinion (which I'll be sure to post once they arrive).
Whatever you think of Cindy Sheehan's politics, you've got to grant her this: She supports her convictions unlike most others. Sheehan is the mother of Casey Sheehan, a 24-year-old soldier who was killed last year in Iraq. This month, she followed President George W. Bush to his home in Crawford, Texas, and vowed to camp nearby until he emerges to meet with her and answer a simple question: Why did her son have to die?
As U.S. support for this farce of a war in Iraq falters, Sheehan has come to symbolize the wide chasm between the war's fervent supporters and its demonized critics. The symbolism is potent. On one hand, there is a grieving mother, standing on a blistering Texas roadside, making a plea for straight talk. On the other, there is a president who continues his familiar line, that freedom's on the march and that we need to stay the course. Though President George W. Bush has said he sympathizes with Sheehan, he has declined to meet with her. Instead, he cites his need to stay healthy and get his exercise while on five weeks worth of vacation. "I've got a life to live and will do so," Bush says.
Casey Sheehan also had a life to live. He committed it--foolishly, it turned out--to President George W. Bush's farce of a war... an unprecedented, discretionary attack, launched without due justification by the President of the United States and without critical oversight by the United States Congress. In Cindy Sheehan's own words:
"This is George Bush's accountability moment. That's why I'm here. The mainstream media aren't holding him accountable. Neither is Congress. So I'm not leaving Crawford until he's held accountable. It's ironic, given the attacks leveled at me recently, how some in the media are so quick to scrutinize ó and distort ó the words and actions of a grieving mother but not the words and actions of the president of the United States."
Sheehan has been fiercely attacked by conservative pundits. This was to be expected. The Bush team and its supporters are masters of the art of attacking the questioner instead of addressing the merits of the question. It must be said that the grieving mother has made some intemperate statements. Bereaved people can be that way (go figure). Cooler heads should understand this.
Certainly, though, Sheehan's reported remarks about a "neo-con agenda to benefit Israel" are worth noting and rebutting. Some of her statements seem to mirror the talking points of left-leaning groups. Such baggage will limit her credibility and efficacy among those who don't already agree with her. Brave and articulate though she is, Sheehan might not be the best spokesperson for her cause.
None of that, however, changes the fact that Cindy Sheehan's central question deserves a reasonable and serious reply. But her question remains notably, contemptibly unanswered. The chance that George W. Bush will actually sacrifice a bike ride or jog to meet Sheehan approximate a snowball's surviving a hot Crawford, Texas, afternoon. Even if by some miracle he consented to a meeting, the chance is even smaller that Bush would actually address her question. He's never shown the inclination or the ability.
The President will soon end his vacation, and Cindy Sheehan will fade from view. In other words, this, too, shall pass. But the truth remains. The President of the United States dragged the nation into a horrid, badly bungled, hugely expensive and ill-justified farce of a war. For this, he must be held to account. For her attempts to accomplish that, one mother deserves our thanks.
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Copyright 2005, The Daily Camera and Boulder Publishing, LLC.
Did anyone happen to catch the President's nationally televised speech Tuesday evening? If not, you may be interested to know where the so-called leader of the free world ranks military service among the many options our citizens have in terms of which career they choose to pursue. From Tuesday evening's speech:
I thank those of you who have re-enlisted in an hour when your country needs you. And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces.
Really? There's no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces? Wow; I for one am shocked. Just off the top of my head, I can think of around a dozen or so jobs/posts that I'd say easily rank above military service in the 'higher calling' category, including (in no particular order):
- Foster Parent
- Social Worker
- Health Educator
- Hospice Worker
- Registered Nurse
- Career Counselor
- Members of Clergy
- EMT and Paramedic
- Public School Teacher
- Rape/Crisis Counselor
- Child Welfare Advocate
- Home Health Care Aide
Don't get me wrong, I do support our men and women in uniform, but not because of this supposed 'war' we're engaged in; I support them as individuals; individuals who--for the most part--have been led astray by greed and the current administration's need to be right at all costs (even if it means putting our service men and women in harms way for reasons which to this blogger and millions of other US citizens make very little sense).
But putting that pesky issue aside for just a moment, I have to say that the President's ranking of armed service would ring a little less hollow for me--and perhaps for you too?--if our country's ruling class (the President's own family included, of course) were better represented in the military. The fact is that military/armed service is a lower/middle-class and working-class occupation, which US elites avoid like the plague, as they do almost every other worthwhile career, including those listed above (along with tons of others, I'm sure [sorry, that list is the best I can come up with at 5:45 a.m.]). Military service, at least as far as I'm concerned, is no higher a calling than is volunteering with the Peace Corp in any number of regions across the world.
Jeremy Bentham, the English philosopher, famously referred to the discussion of fundamental rights as "nonsense on stilts." He argued that actions should be determined as morally right or wrong based wholly on whether or not they maximize pleasure and minimize pain. He thought it ludicrous that anyone would consider rights independent of utility. As Americans, however, we believe we are entitled to certain fundamental rights irrespective of the general welfare, and as the second amendment illustrates, we really like our guns. So when Doug Jackson, an elected member of the Tennessee state legislature, recently proposed an amendment to his stateís constitution resolving that "the people have a right to hunt, fish, and harvest game," it garnered immediate bipartisan support.
Now, as a fisherman and a fishing guide, I'll admit this all seems a bit strange to me. It's not that I don't agree with him on some level that I have a right to hunt and fish on public lands that my taxpayer dollars support, it's just that I'm not sure I see the rational necessitating a constitutional amendment protecting such a right. Or put another way, I drink a lot of coffee, but I'm not asking the government to protect that right. Furthermore, I am happy to give up my "right" to fish for a certain species if the regulatory agency in charge of managing the resource tells me it's in the fisheries best interest. It would be a colossal waste of time for the government to protect my right to drink coffee with "a right to drink coffee amendment," and I'm inclined to think the same holds true when it comes to hunting and fishing.
Of course there is nobody who is seriously threatening my ability to drink coffee, but there are those who would tell you that animal rights advocates are a clear and present danger to hunting and fishing on public wildlands nationwide. Tennessee state Senator Jeff Miller is one such individual, and toward that end, he recently pushed through an NRA-inspired amendment to Doug Jackson's bill extending its scope to include "hunting and fishing for all game and fish species by all methods and means available to citizens under the laws, regulations, and restrictions of this state at any time during the ten years preceding the ratification of this amendment." Senator Miller, perhaps a suspicious man by nature, appears to believe it is his duty to use constitutional amendments to preemptively protect people from whatever he views as an immanent threat. For example, recently Miller was instrumental is the passage of another Jackson bill--the one that defines marriage as a contract between one man and one woman. "This fight was forced upon us by those who are seeking to redefine marriage in court by cozying up to activist judges," said Miller. I fear the slickness of the slope when every threat becomes a constitutional amendment.
So this isn't really about my right to hunt and fish, I guess. Rather it's an openly politicized and partisan preemptive strike masterminded by the pro-gun lobby and aimed at weakening the power of the animal rights lobby. Behind the politics, however, is a bill that could be disastrous to the state's wildlands and wildlife. What happens, for instance, when the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) needs to change hunting or fishing regulations in the best interest of conservation? What happens when an animal that was legally hunted in Tennessee sometime in the last ten years, suddenly winds up on the endangered species list? It's not hard to imagine where our litigious society could take us in these situations, and although TWRA officials are confident that a federally listed species would be protected by the state even if the amendment with the NRA language passes, they fear it would require significant funds to litigate such cases--funds that could and should be better spent on conservation and management.
Senator Miller recently said in regard to the defense of marriage amendment, "Activist judges liberally read their own thoughts and views into constitutions in order to 'find' rights which don't exist." But it seems to me, Mr. Miller, that the "right to hunt and fish amendment" is a fishing trip if ever there was one, or as Bentham would put it, it's nonsense on stilts. Anyway, I'll be maximizing my own pleasure while enjoying a cup of coffee when I leave the dock to fish tomorrow morning--it's my right after all.
-- Copyright 2005 by Ret Talbot, exclusively for the Beli-Blog
There was an interesting article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about the challenges convicted felons face upon release from prison (and being able to vote is the least of their worries). From finding work and housing to receiving a state issued identification card or financial aid to pay for college, convicted felons are faced with one hurdle after another in their attempt to reinsert themselves back into society. While I have never been arrested or spent even one second behind bars, I have a friend who is soon going to be faced with many of these issues himself, and I worry for him in deep and meaningful ways.
What is the justification for denying people who have paid their debt to society the right to vote? After all, the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are equal, inseparable and take precedence over any subsequent enactments. Would anyone assert that a felon, once released from prison and having successfully completed parole or probation, has no right to attend a church--to exercise his or her freedom of religion--until those specific rights are restored in writing by some executive order? Of course not.
Likewise, no one would consider barring former prisoners from writing books or letters-to-the-editor after their release pending issuance of some document formally "restoring" this First Amendment right.
This notion that you can become a second class citizens--with some of your constitutional rights selectively and permanently impaired--even after you have "done your time," is anathema in a free country, because it accustoms us to a dangerous precedent under which bureaucrats are empowered to decide which rights shall be "restored," and when.
Click on the link below for the full Wall Street Journal article. It's a fascinating read, to say the least.
After Prison Boom, A Focus on Hurdles Faced by Ex-Cons
Housing, Work -- Even an ID -- Can Be Hard to Attain
By GARY FIELDS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
May†24,†2005;†Page†A1
In the kitchen of an Applebee's restaurant in Queens, N.Y., Jacqueline Smith has been a model hire. In less than two years working as a cook, she got a promotion to supervisor, doubled her salary and won the award for employee of the year.
Her success hasn't come easily. The dark-haired 38-year-old is an ex-convict who served more than nine years for transporting more than half a pound of crack cocaine from New York to Washington. Since being released in July 2003, she has struggled with basic necessities such as finding affordable housing and getting a valid state ID card.
A single parent with a steady but low-paying job, Ms. Smith would normally be considered a prime candidate for public-housing assistance, but she knows the odds are against her. Local housing rules bar ex-felons from living in public housing for six years after completing their sentence. So every night around midnight, Ms. Smith takes a few buses and switches subway lines for an hour-long trek to a Manhattan shelter for female ex-convicts where she and her daughter have been living for more than a year.
"It's one battle after the next -- trying to obtain housing, trying to obtain employment," Ms. Smith says. "I want a second chance. I want people to see I made mistakes, but I am making it right."
Ms. Smith is one of more than 630,000 people released each year from corrections institutions in the U.S. Not surprisingly, people who have been locked up for many years, often poorly educated and lacking in financial support, face a range of obstacles to re-entering society. Yet some of the biggest are put there by federal, state and local governments, including hurdles to getting student loans, public housing and other forms of government assistance.
For years, the thinking among law-enforcement officials and politicians was that this was the price people should pay for breaking the law. Now there is an emerging belief that the larger price is being borne by society, since the practical barriers facing ex-prisoners make it more likely that they will slip back into a life of crime.
Two-thirds of ex-felons return to police custody within three years of their release for new crimes or for probation or parole violations, according to Justice Department studies. U.S. taxpayers spent $60 billion on corrections in 2002 at the local, state and federal levels, up from $9 billion two decades earlier. Over that same time frame, corrections has been the second fastest growing government spending category after health care.
Aside from public-housing restrictions, many former felons find they need special waivers to get licensed in vocations they learned while serving time. Some find their attempts to get an education are stymied by laws barring loans to those convicted of a crime. Still others can stumble into technical violations that send them back to prison, such as reporting late for a meeting with a probation officer. For those who have completed lengthy sentences, the most frustrating barrier is also the most basic -- getting a legitimate ID card, such as a driver's license.
"One barrier may not be that big a deal," says Debbie Mukamal, director of the prisoner re-entry institute at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. Usually, though, offenders face several barriers, she says, adding: "You can't get housing, you have child support" payments to make, "you can't get ID and no one will hire you. Cumulatively, that sends a signal: You're not wanted." Ms. Mukamal is the co-author of a sweeping report last year funded by the Justice Department and conducted by the Legal Action Center, a New York nonprofit, examining "roadblocks to entry" facing ex-offenders.
After years of pushing for tougher sentences, politicians in Washington are rethinking their approach. The Second Chance Act, hammered out by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and introduced last month, would provide more than $80 million in grants for programs to help ex-offenders re-enter society.
Kellie Mann Owens might have benefited from a key part of the legislation: a provision ensuring that ex-offenders can be licensed in occupations they trained for in prison.
Ms. Owens was determined to learn a skill so she could land a job when she left the Alderson, W.Va., women's prison made famous recently for housing Martha Stewart. In 1993, Ms. Owens, who had just finished her sophomore year at Santa Rosa Junior College in Northern California, obtained LSD for her ex-boyfriend and mailed it to him in Georgia. He was caught and cooperated with authorities against those he had enlisted to secure drugs, including Ms. Owens. He was sentenced to two years while she received 10.
Ms. Owens, now 34 years old, joined the prison's all-women fire-fighting team, a group that provides fire protection for the prison and backup for other local fire squads. She figured it would position her well for a decent job. For more than five years, she slogged through classes and training, entering smoke-filled rooms with her oxygen mask blackened to simulate rescue situations and navigating the Appalachian mountain roads near the prison in a yellow fire truck.
"Any of the physical requirements that you had to do" for state licensing, "we were required to do in our classes," says Ms. Owens.
She eventually rose to the fire team's top rank of lieutenant, garnering 300 hours of training and 100 hours at the scenes of actual fires in the towns outside the prison.
In January 2001, President Clinton granted her clemency on his last day in office after receiving her name from Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a group that advocates changes in sentencing laws.
After eight years in prison, she left Alderson for her parents' home in Alpharetta, Ga., confident a fire department in one of Atlanta's booming suburbs would hire her. She filled out each job application truthfully, noting she was a felon. But state law bars hiring former felons.
Ms. Owens says she offered to "clean hoses, flush the truck," anything to get her foot in the door -- to no avail.
Eventually, she got a job with an organization that trains service dogs for people with debilitating diseases and injuries. Last year, she moved to Hawaii and started a catering business with her husband, who she had met back in high school. The business didn't take off so they are planning to try again in Mississippi.
Many ex-convicts leave prison wanting to start anew, and the first step is often trying to get an education. But while 63% of all undergraduates receive some form of financial aid, money isn't easy to come by for ex-felons.
Emily Wheeler, of Kenosha, Wis., says she was arrested Aug. 5, 2003, for growing and selling marijuana with her boyfriend.
Nineteen years old and in the early stages of pregnancy, she received a sentence of three months in jail and three years on probation -- reasonable, given that "I did screw up," she now says.
After she was released in January 2004, she applied to take classes in word-processing and other office skills at Gateway Technical College in Kenosha. "I was filling out the application [for financial aid] and I got to question 35. It asked me if I'd been convicted of a drug felony," she says. "I was totally halted right there."
Federal law states that first-time offenders convicted on federal or state drug-possession or drug-trafficking charges are ineligible to receive financial assistance for as long as two years after their convictions. Completing drug rehabilitation can cut that time, but such programs can be expensive.
"I understand their concern. A college campus is a perfect place to sell drugs, but I also know I can't move forward in my life without an education and a good job," says Ms. Wheeler. She now earns $7 an hour at a Culver's Frozen Custard, a fast-food restaurant, trying to make ends meet to help support Olivia Rose, her 1-year-old.
For Ms. Smith, the Applebee's cook, finding housing for herself and her teenage daughter has been the toughest challenge. Upon being released in July 2003 from the women's prison in Danbury, Conn., Ms. Smith headed for a halfway house.
Like many prisoners released before their sentence is completed, Ms. Smith was required to find a job in 15 days or face the possibility of being returned to prison to finish her last six months. But to get a job, Ms. Smith needed valid identification from the Department of Motor Vehicles. In New York, residents need a combination of documentation such as bills and voter registration cards that each add up to enough cumulative "points" to qualify for a driver's license or nondriver ID.
Ms. Smith had a federal prisoner ID, a birth certificate and a Social Security card. Those were not enough. Motor-vehicle personnel asked if she had a passport, a bill with her name on it, any additional identifiers. "I kept telling them that I'd been in prison the last 10 years and didn't have any other identification." Eventually she found a sympathetic supervisor who issued her the card.
She found a job quickly at a clothing store but switched after a few months to work for Applebee's, where she could use the culinary certificate she'd earned in training on the inside.
She struggled to find a cheap yet safe place for her and her daughter. The two are now living in the Sarah Powell Huntington House, a Women's Prison Association facility, funded through the city department of homeless services.
Ms. Smith has been trying to apply for subsidized housing. The federal government has a small number of restrictions against ex-felons living in public housing, such as sex offenders and those who have manufactured methamphetamine in a housing complex. However, local housing authorities are able to impose their own restrictions on ex-felons living in public housing, and those can be expansive.
Howard Marder, spokesman for the New York City Housing Authority, says there are virtually no vacancies in the city in public housing and with about 136,000 applications pending it is unlikely that someone with a felony record will get in. Besides, ex-felons are ineligible for public housing for six years after the completion of their sentence, including probation. Ms. Smith, who will be on probation another three years, won't even be eligible until 2014.
Ms. Smith recently met with a New York City Housing Authority case agent to discuss her application. She took certificates showing her training and her work experience, but the conversation turned toward her felony record. "I asked if that meant I wasn't going to get it. They wouldn't say no outright," she said, but she was left with the impression that her application would be rejected. "I still hope everything works out," she says, "but I don't know."
Until something else comes along, Ms. Smith says she'll keep pushing for promotions at work, while staying in the shelter. Returning to a life of crime and risking a return to prison is not an option, she says: "I don't have another 10 years to give to nobody."
When Major League Baseball touted the fact that our 'supposed' national pastime was coming back to Washington D.C. this summer, this isn't what I had in mind.
As D.C.'s new team--the Washington Nationals--trains in sunny Florida, some of baseball's biggest names are being asked to make their way to the nation's capital to testify before Congress about an issue which legislators think is so big and so out of control that they need to hold hearings over. I'm talking of course about that really big issue that's plaguing our country right now--the issue of professional athletes using performance-enhancing drugs. Jose Canseco (retired and just wrote a book), Jason Giambi (plays for the NY Yankees), Mark McGwire (this guy doesn't even play anymore), Rafael Palmeiro, Curt Schilling, Sammy Sosa, and Frank Thomas have all been asked to testify before Congress, and since this is an issue that's weighing so heavily on the citizenry right now, those who don't agree to voluntarily appear before Congress, well, they've been threatened with subpoenas to do so.
Come on people... be honest... does anyone, aside from the grandstanding politicians, think these hearings are a good use of Congress' time and resources? Would any one of us be more or less likely to follow baseball if it's confirmed that a large number of players used--that's right, I said 'used'--performance-enhancing drugs in the past? Does anyone truly believe that new information about the use of performance-enhancing drugs will come out of these sorts of hearings?
You know, I could give a rat's ass about the use of steroids in professional baseball, or in any other sport for that matter. If an athlete wants to subject him or her self to that sort of thing, go for it. What Congress should be holding hearings on are the outrageous salaries professional athletes earn, fueled by the ridiculously high price of admission you and I have to pay if we want to see them play. And don't even get me started on what the stadiums and arenas get away with charging for a hot dog and soda. Now that's criminal and worthy of a hearing!
I agree with Chris Rock, host of this year's Oscars, when he recently said that the show he's set to host later this month is "idiotic" and little more than a "fashion show." Make no mistake about it... I think televised awards shows like The Grammy's and Oscars promote little more than self-aggrandizing behavior from among a faction of society that is already over paid and overly exposed.
Now comes word from a United States Congressman that $150.000.00 of our taxpayer money went to the GRAMMY Foundation, the "music appreciation" wing of the Recording Academy which hands out the annual awards. Arizona