David Phinney

"If I do run against Norm Coleman in '08, I'll be the only New York Jew in the race who actually grew up in Minnesota."

Both Franken and Coleman were born in New York, but Franken moved to Minnesota when he was a kid. Coleman grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

In 1998, journalist David Schimke with the Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages dug up this little tidbit of a comment made by Coleman during his college days on Long Island:

"I know these conservative kids don't fuck or get high like we do (purity, you know).... Already the cries of motherhood, apple pie, and Jim Buckley reverberate thorough the halls of the Student Center. Everyone watch out, the 1950s bobby-sox generation is about to take over."

Coleman isn't the only swing hitter in politics. Hillary Clinton once campaigned for Barry Goldwater in 1964. Arianna Huffington was one of Newt Gingrich's most energetic cheerleaders in the mid-1990s.

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January 31, 2007

Marching Back to the Future: The Department of Peace

Max Boot parades his bright ideas about the use of civilians in wartime environments in The Los Angeles Times:

How Bush can ensure no more Iraqs
The U.S. is only a few bright ideas away from being the nation builder it needs to be.

In the opening graph, Boot claims that one of the "most intriguing elements" of President Bush's State of the Union speech last week was the proposal to create a "Civilian Reserve Corps" that would ease the burden on the military by hiring civilians to serve on missions abroad.

Boot's imagination reels at the possibilities. He dreams of a new federal agency called the Department of Peace along with a federal police force that would be dispatched to "enforce the law in lawless lands."

Call it the Department of Peace Enforcement.

Cute. And once upon a time, the Department of Defense was called the Department of War.

The military is the military by any other name.

There are now 100,000 civilian contractors working for the US military in Iraq. Most of them do work that the military once did. In addition to the 25,000 or so gun-slinging private security contractors, these civilians drive trucks, build and service military camps, do logistical engineering, join midnight missions to bang down doors of Iraqi homes in search of insurgents, take part in prison interrogations, train troops and police, etc., etc., etc.....

The whole idea of using civilian contractors was to save money and let soldiers be soldiers. Civilians can be hired when needed and then fired. That's allegedly why civilians make so much more money than soldiers do. Once contractors do their job, they're gone. There are no expensive training costs, no pension payments or explosive funding needs by the Department of Veteran Affairs.

Except now, with recent rewriting of Pentagon contracting code, these civilian contractors are getting to be as close to being soldiers as they can without joining the Army. They eat at military dining halls and many already carry weapons legally or otherwise. The rest can carry weapons when the closest commanding military officer deems it fitting. Contractors on the battlefield are now also subject to military justice on the battlefield thanks to recent legislation approved in Congress just months ago.

The president's "Civilian Reserve Corps" would absorb a big number of these civilians. Follow that line of thinking and in a couple of years, someone is going to have another bright idea. Let's put the "Civilian Reserve Corps" under the control of the military. Hell, let's give them basic training, uniforms, guns, medical benefits and pensions!

That would really bring down costs the old fashioned way -- with an appeal to national service and a promise that the country will stand by those who are willing to make the commitment. In other words, put the contractors back in the military.

Or then again, just reorganize the entire government according to Boot, call it a bright idea, and get the same thing.

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January 29, 2007

(Huh?) 'Increasingly Sexy' Global Warming (?)

Global warming is making people hot around the collar, perhaps, but sexy?

Maybe The Washington Post's new blogger, Paul Kane, is just being "cute" by calling it "sexy." After all, a newly-hired columnist can't be too careful about giving credibility to an issue once advanced exclusively by lefties (readers might think you have a liberal bias or something).

Left or right, Kane's eye caught a good one coming up: three presidential candidates parade before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday -- Sens. Joe Biden (D-Del.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Meanwhile Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) sits on the panel. They will all be offering their solutions to that "increasingly sexy topic" of global warming.

Paul correctly predicts the hearing to be "toothless," so where did he come up with the "fireworks" part starting at 9:00 am?

Fireworks is doubtful, but hopefully it will be more than a lot of hot air.

The safe bet for putting the match to a fuse is with the more substantive hearing Tuesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Led by Henry Waxman of California, the committee be investigating political interference by the Bush Administration in the work of government scientists studying climate change.

Then beginning February 6, Waxman will launch hearings on waste, fraud and abuse under Iraq contractors -- the first of what Waxman says will be a series unfolding in coming months. Notes The Wall Street Journal:

They will mark the opening of what promises to be one of the most significant inquiries by the new Congress into actions by the Bush administration while Republicans controlled the House and Senate.

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Well, It Sounded Good Last Week....

..... According to The Washington Post:

Twenty in 10: Bush said in his State of the Union speech last week that he has a "goal of reducing U.S. gasoline usage by 20 percent in the next 10 years."

The fine print: Administration officials said that the goal is 20 percent below projected annual gasoline usage, not off today's levels.

That's very significant for oil markets, where analysts look at the balance of rising supplies and rising demand.

No wonder the president looked like all he wanted to do was go home during his speech.

Not only that, the Democrats now are punching hard:

Bush's boldest-sounding energy proposal -- to replace 35 billion gallons of gasoline with "alternative" (rather than renewable) fuels by 2017 -- relies on coal-based fuel, a product that "could nearly double global warming pollution per gallon of fuel" compared to petroleum-based fuels we use today.

And, according to a New York Times editorial:

Refining and then burning a gallon of gasoline derived from coal would send nearly twice as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a conventional gallon of gasoline and would thus be a disaster for global warming. Trying to sequester the carbon dioxide underground during the refining process would be hugely expensive.

And let us not forget that the Democrats won't forget, especially with Rep. Henry Waxman of California swinging a gavel:

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing on January 30 regarding political interference in the work of government climate change scientists.

In preparation for the hearing, Chairman Waxman and Ranking Member Davis have requested documents from the Council on Environmental Quality related to allegations that officials edited scientific reports and took other actions to minimize the significance of climate change. Letter to CEQ Chairman James Connaughton.

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January 25, 2007

Candidates to Outnumber Voters in '08

One in Two Americans Running for President, Experts Say

So says The Borowitz Report:

While the negative tone of recent election campaigns have turned off voters in record numbers, the appeal of being the world's most powerful person has never been greater, causing the two trend lines to cross.

Furthermore:

The fact that over 140 million Americans are expected to run for president in 2008 does not deter most aspirants, Ms. Foyler said, explaining, "Most of them still have a better shot than Kucinich."

And elsewhere in the news:

The National Security Agency said that a stream of indecipherable chatter it intercepted turned out to be Paula Abdul.

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A Convenient Candidate

Rolling Stone rolls out the argument for Al Gore to step up to the plate and run again for president.

If he takes the bait, there would be no better time than at the Oscars, where his power-point presentation, ah, I mean film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, looks like the top contender for best documentary. While accepting the award he could announce to the world -- an audience of one or two gadzillion people -- that he is launching his campaign exploratory committee. (Question: What in the hell are these candidates exploring?)

This is Tim Dickinson's take in Rolling Stone:

Unlike Hillary Clinton, he has no controversial vote on Iraq to defend. Unlike Barack Obama and John Edwards, he has extensive experience in both the Senate and the White House. He has put aside his wooden, policy-wonk demeanor to emerge as the Bush administration's most eloquent critic. And thanks to An Inconvenient Truth, Gore is not only the most impassioned leader on the most urgent crisis facing the planet, he's also a Hollywood celebrity, the star of the third-highest-grossing documentary of all time.

Dickinson suggests that Gore could easily challenge superstar Hillary Clinton by using the medium he once took credit for inventing -- or at least help fund its invention while in Congress:

Thanks to his vocal opposition to the war -- and his decision to back Howard Dean's anti-war candidacy in 2003 -- Gore has all but sewn up the backing of the party's "Netroots" activists. Eli Pariser calls Gore "a close friend of MoveOn," and Markos Moulitsas, the founder of DailyKos, is equally unabashed in his support. "More than any other Democrat over the last four years, Gore has actually delivered," says Moulitsas, one of the Internet's most influential organizers. "If Gore enters the race, it's his nomination for the taking." In an online poll of 14,000 activists held in December by DailyKos, sixty percent voted for Gore. By comparison, Clinton received just 292 votes.

Others also chime in:

"If Howard Dean could raise $59 million on the Internet," says (veteran Democratic consultant Bill) Carrick, "the mind boggles as to what Al Gore might do." Joe Trippi, who managed Dean's campaign, believes Gore could raise as much as $200 million on the Internet: "Gore may have more money than anybody within days of entering the race."

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January 24, 2007

Bush's State of the Union: Volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps?

I am a little curious about his idea for designing and establishing a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Sounds like a move to institutionalize the use of contractors on the battlefield:

Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. And it would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.

Where did he get that idea? Halliburton/KBR? Eric Prince? Or is he just laying ground cover for the coming congressional hearings on Iraq contractor fraud and abuse? I suppose it's an effort for jointness.

Nevertheless, I liked the energy theme.

For too long our nation has been dependent on foreign oil. And this dependence leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes, and to terrorists -- who could cause huge disruptions of oil shipments, raise the price of oil and do great harm to our economy.

More importantly, he called for diversifying energy sources through technology (although he missed a good point about new energy technology bringing about a new generation of US exports).

And I liked the 20 percent reduction in gasoline useage in the next decade:

I ask Congress to join me in pursuing a great goal. Let us build on the work we have done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next ten years -- thereby cutting our total imports by the equivalent of three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East.

Bush should have been more ambitious and raised the bar to 100 percent energy independence in the next decade. That would be a 10 percent reduction a year. Energy independence should be the equivalent to the space race and "putting a man on the moon" in the next decade.

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January 19, 2007

Richardson Readies for Wiggle Room

Not that it's much of my business, but the Democratic operatives on Capitol Hill I know say he shares the same liability as Bill Clinton. A few flings or maybe more outside the zipper of his marriage vows. The skeletons could be rattling any moment now once New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson announces this Sunday that he is ready to create a presidential exploratory committee.

Superstars Hillary and Barack have sucked out most of the breathing room in polls of early nominating states, but this Bill may be the most qualified Dem jumping into the field. Once the campaign heats up, his competitors will doubtlessly open their mouths to exhale some controversial positions -- either that or bore voters and drive them away. That just might be enough to create the wiggle room Richardson needs. (And he may even be able to wiggle. Richardson's lost a ton of weight.)

Fourteen years in Congress, U.N. ambassador, Energy Department secretary and Western governor are the notches in his resume. The details are sometimes even more compelling. President Bush asked him to visit North Korea for talks on the nuclear program and he even more recently traveled to Sudan to broker a 60-day peace agreement and an end to the bloodshed in Darfur. He's very good at that kind of work.

While in Congress, he visited Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Peru, India, North Korea, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Sudan to represent U.S. interests. In 1995, he travelled to Baghdad for lengthy and successful one-on-one negotiations with Saddam Hussein to free a few American hostages.

Putting aside his sticky problems with the Wen Ho Lee saga and baseball tales, Wonkette lists some interesting pluses:

* He's half-Mexican and speaks Spanish. * For 23 of the past 27 years, governors have been president.* For 15 of those years, Western governors have been president.* Actually a talented politician.* Ran the DGA and almost ran the DNC, so knows the machine.* Born in California, raised in Mexico and Boston -- he's got the local angle everywhere but the South, which could be fixed with Edwards on the ticket as veep. * No war support vote to worry about. * Actually coherent on the get-out-of-Iraq plan, because it's the Baker-Hamilton plan and he understands how to make it work with Syria and Iran. * Old enough to make Edwards and Obama look like kids, yet young enough to make McCain look like a crazy old man.

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January 14, 2007

Gripping Headline!!! Hold the Phone! This Just In!!!

A guy I was standing next to in line at Murky Grounds on Capitol Hill pointed this out to me.

"That's no headline," he said, pointing to a stack of Washington Post newspapers by the cash register.

And there it was, above the fold on The Washington Post front page:

"HOUSE GOP SHOWS ITS FRACTIOUSNESS IN THE MINORITY"

Fractiousness???

Forget news stand sales, darling, please whisper sweet nothings in my ear....

I'm no headline writer, but the man was right. That's definitely no headline word and certainly not the kind of word that wakes me up on a Sunday morning.

No wonder newspaper circulation is in a nosedive.

How about: "Unity Falls Apart, "Republican Leaders Lose Their Grip,"" Republican Goose Stepping Ends," or "Republicans Break Rank."

The news media needs to get out of the Ivy Leagues and regain a little street sense (no matter how unruly and fractious those streets may sometimes be).

Fractiousness
A. noun
1. unruliness, fractiousness, willfulness, wilfulness
the trait of being prone to disobedience and lack of discipline.

Interesting story, nonetheless:

"You're freer to vote your conscience," said Rep. Jo Anne Emerson (R-Mo.), who received an 88 percent voting record from the American Conservative Union in 2005 but has so far sided with Democrats on new budget rules, Medicare prescription-drug negotiations, raising the minimum wage and funding stem cell research. "Or, really, I feel free to represent my constituents exactly as they want me to be."

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January 05, 2007

Congress Urged to Look at Labor Trafficking

GovExec reiterates POGO's press release today by outlining the group's 13 priorities for Congress in the coming session. Among those priorities, the often celebrated, self-appointed, Washington-based watchdog group, aka, the Project on Government Oversight, singles out labor trafficking under US contracts in Iraq:

Highlighting a little-known issue, the advocacy officials cited a Defense Department investigation into human trafficking by federal contractors operating in Iraq. They noted that no hearings have been held to examine potential abuses of third-country nationals working on U.S.-funded projects, including the illegal confiscation of passports and violations of Iraqi immigration rules.

For more on what is claimed to be the "little known issue" of labor trafficking under US contracts, click here.

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Ouch!

From a December 12 Bill Moyers speech before a bunch of lefty groups gathering in New York sponsored by The Nation, Demos, the Brennan Center for Justice and the New Democracy Project:

Democrats are ebullient as they prepare to take charge of the multitrillion-dollar influence racket that we used to call the US Congress. Let them rejoice while they can, as long as they remember that while they ran some good campaigns, they have arrived at this moment mainly because George W. Bush lost a war most people have come to believe should never have been fought in the first place....

Democrats would be wise to be mindful of Shakespeare's counsel, "'Tis more by fortune ... than by merit." For they were delivered from the wilderness not by their own goodness and purity but by the grace of K Street corruption, DeLay Inc.'s duplicity, the pitiless exploitation of Terri Schiavo, the disgrace of Mark Foley and a shameful partisan cover-up, the shamelessness of Jack Abramoff and a partisan conspiracy, and neocon arrogance and amorality (yes, amoral: Apparently there is no end to the number of bodies Bill Kristol and Richard Perle are prepared to watch pile up on behalf of illusions that can't stand the test of reality even one Beltway block from the think tanks where they are hatched). The Democrats couldn't have been more favored by the gods if they had actually believed in one!

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January 04, 2007

Arianna's Aggressive Pursuit of (the) Action

Talk about swing voters!

Sunday, Home Edition
Copyright 1995 The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
February 5, 1995, Sunday, Home Edition
LENGTH: 1033 words

HEADLINE: ARIANNA'S WORLD;
WITH HER 'BROWN BAG' LUNCHES AND PLANS FOR A 'BEAT THE PRESS' SHOW, MIKE HUFFINGTON'S WIFE CRUSADES IN WASHINGTON FOR GOP CAUSES

BYLINE: By DAVID PHINNEY, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:
Mike Huffington may have spent $27.5 million of his own money in his failed bid for the U.S. Senate, but that did not prevent him and his wife, Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington, from returning to Washington.

While former congressman Huffington cultivates a low profile in the labyrinthine social world of Washington, his wife is visibly riding on the Republican tsunami that swept over the nation's capital in November.

Welcome to Arianna's world, a constellation of right-wing thinkers and politicians accented with New Age activists, a sprinkling of reconstituted liberals and some who refuse to be classified at all.

Immersed in a flurry of activity, Arianna Huffington is putting the finishing touches on a dinner scheduled for Tuesday, featuring House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

She hopes the dinner will raise about $600,000 to benefit the nonprofit National Empowerment Television, the broadcaster of Gingrich's weekly lecture, "Progress Report," and sponsor of his "Renewing American Civilization." NET also once ran Arianna Huffington's now-discontinued program, "Critical Mass."

Price per couple for a dinner with the speaker: $50,000.

Huffington has also signed on as a senior fellow with the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank closely allied to Gingrich, and she is busy developing a television program called "Beat the Press," featuring herself as a self-styled investigative media critic.

The show would use video clips and commentary to chronicle her discoveries of press blunders and inaccuracies. Guests who have been made "victims" by media harpies will drop by to tell their side of the story, she said.

First media victim guest: Fellow Republican and political soul mate Newt Gingrich.

Huffington takes offense at a New Yorker article likening Gingrich's speech-making style to that of the Ayatollah Khomeini, and she intends to set the record straight. For "Beat the Press" she has edited a video segment of the Ayatollah sermonizing about "streets filled with blood" and combined it with tape of Gingrich talking about welfare.

"Satire is a great way to show bias," she said.

As part of her critique of the American media, she plans to feature a segment of good news. "What the media missed this week," she said. "It's so much more important than some little law that's passed."

Although she has completed much of the pilot, there are no takers for the program yet, but she has an eye on selling the idea to network television or for syndication.

There is also a new book project, Huffington's fifth in 20 years.

This one recounts the Republican revolution with frequent asides about her husband's recent defeat.

"It's about three revolutions, really," she explained. "There's the political revolution that launched the Republican landslide, the cultural revolution without which the political revolution cannot succeed, and the personal revolution in how we see the purpose of our lives."

And Arianna Huffington's purpose these days -- her public-personal purpose -- is to fill the public welfare void that will be left if the Republican majority in Congress succeeds in dismantling the welfare system.

"If you believe, as we believe, that the safety net government provides is full of holes and torn and doesn't really work anymore, then there has got to be something to take its place," she said.

And that is what her monthly lunches in a Georgetown condominium overlooking the Potomac River -- contributed by the Seagram's Corp. -- are all about, she said.

She invites people to a "brown bag lunch" so they can join in intimate discussions about how to replace the welfare state. The fare is not literally brown bag: Guests treat themselves to a beef stroganoff buffet and baby carrots served on blue-rimmed Limoges china.

Twenty-two guests attentively gathered at last month's meeting, including staffers from the Progress and Freedom Foundation, public housing professionals, members of nonprofit organizations and former Delaware Gov. Pete DuPont.

Conservative writers Marvin Olasky and Don Eberly, whose books are on Gingrich's reading list, assisted Huffington in leading the discussion. "I must admit, I have an intellectual love affair with both of these men," she said as she introduced them.

"This is the beginning of a conversation about what needs to be done," Huffington said while the chocolate cake was served. "We've got to get to work.

"Everybody knows that money alone is not going to solve the acute problems facing us," she said as she explained the group's plans to replace welfare programs soon to hit the congressional chopping block. "The question is how do you turn lives around? How do you turn around the lives of addicts and alcoholics and the single mothers?"

The answer, she says, is volunteerism, community involvement, local control and private funding of programs that have little to do with federal government. Huffington wants all facets of the private sector to chip in -- individuals, corporations and churches.

Being married to multimillionaire Mike Huffington makes her ideas an easy target for those less fortunate. But even in liberal camps, Arianna Huffington has her supporters.

"There is so much overlap between liberals and conservatives, and in many cases, we agree more than disagree," said Jane Fortsen, who once worked with the Carter Center in Atlanta. Describing herself as a liberal Democrat with a longtime involvement in public housing, Fortsen recently joined the Progress and Freedom Foundation.

"I'm not a liberal, I'm not a conservative, but they characterize us as a liberal organization," said Andrew E. Taubman, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization pushing to apply "Jeffersonian democracy" to the changes being wrought by technology.

Taubman said he was intrigued with the monthly lunch and plans to return. "They say what they think and stick their chin out. If they get hit, they get back up and keep on plugging. I like that."

Besides, it's good networking. "It's fascinating to think that Newt Gingrich could be president someday and these people around him could be his advisers," he said.

Phinney writes for States News Service.

GRAPHIC: Photo, Arianna Huffington, shown strolling in Santa Barbara last year, is immersed in a flurry of activity. Associated Press

LOAD-DATE: February 6, 1995

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January 03, 2007

Energy Independence in 10 Years

Imagine President Bush announcing a national plan to achieve US energy independence by 2011 the day after the 9-11 attack in 2001. We may have already been half way there in reaching the goal.

Bush could have muscled all of his political capital and the collective national will to support the development of energy efficient products and alternative fuels. Much of the money that has been spent in Iraq -- $350 billion and counting -- could have been spent on developing better automobiles, light bulbs, refrigerators, computers, and a sweeping catalog of other consumer products that would supply a whole new generation of high-tech exports for the United States economy.

Need the oil companies and other corporate interests to buy into the program? Well, corporations have done very well financially with the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq. Presumably, they would buy into a program at home -- especially if you paid them anything close to the money they are billing in Iraq.

Cynical? Perhaps. But a program for national energy independence also would create more jobs in the US as well. That in turn, would nurture further broad-based support for a national energy program.

Think of it as being similar to the US space program after the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik in 1957, the world's first artificial satellite. It was the size of a basketball, weighed 183 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path.

The modest little orb spurred Congress to fast-track the National Aeronautics and Space Act and create NASA on October 1, 1958. So began the multi-billion-dollar, decade-long U.S.-U.S.S.R space race.

The Communist achievement was a competitive humiliation that President John F. Kennedy and his administration would not tolerate. Kennedy's new 1961 commitment to landing "a man on the moon," not only gave us the powdered orange drink, Tang, and the laptop computer, but it also reinvigorated public education and sparked other lasting political, military, technological, and scientific developments.*

An energy independence program would do the same things. According to one group, the Apollo Alliance, a 10-year national investment of $313 billion would spark $1.43 trillion in economic activity, $953.87 billion in personal income and over 3.3 million new good-paying jobs.

Landing a man on the moon in may have been more possible than making the United States energy independent in 10 years, but even if the United States were 50 percent successful, the progress would have enormous impact. Oil producing nations would come begging for business while cutting prices on their barrels.

*Sputnik also inspired San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen to coin the term "beatnik" in an article about the Beat Generation on April 2, 1958.

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January 02, 2007

Shrinking Violets

They foresaw a New American Century and it was as if they planned to pump up US foreign policy with steady injections of steroids. ... Then again, maybe they just were metaphorically whacked out on the drug themselves.

Adelman will be giving a tell-all talk at Nathan's in Georgetown Jan. 11, noon.

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September 13, 2006

Just in Time for the November Election

Crude oil fell to $63.76 a barrel at the close, down nearly 3% from yesterday, as the International Energy Agency and the U.S. Energy Information Administration both cut global demand projections for the rest of 2006 and 2007.

Who has more influence over oil prices? George Bush and his Saudi friends or Nancy Pelosi and her socialite buddies?

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September 07, 2006

ABC, bin Laden, Clinton and Monica

It figures that ABC would be bending current events for reasons beyond my understanding. Ratings? Politics? Ass kissing to the current administration?

Then again, thumb sucking, cock sucking and ass kissing is just just business. Some just make better news.

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