hsuperpolitical

a little less political

2010-08-19T19:04:00.003-04:00

To my approximately seven readers:

It's no surprise to those of you who have me on GChat that I haven't posted anything here for the last month. But for those of you who don't, the news is that I have been taking a hiatus from this blog as I began a new career position within a government agency, and have been taking time to learn about the limitations on the sort of acceptable blogging. There are, I believe, very important and necessary ethical guidelines established by law on political activity of career government employees, and I definitely plan to follow them both in spirit and in letter.

So after allowing for some time to percolate on these rules, and the past/present/future of my blogging interests, I've come to the realization that this is a good moment to transition away from primarily political blogging. That there are certain limitations required by my new job that would require some self-censoring, especially of rants, is certainly a major reason for breaking from this thread of writing. And there are a lot of other reasons I thought of as well, from my inability to dedicate the amount of time and brain matter necessary to be a decent political blogger to my new, relatively long daily commute to work and back.

But most of all, I've had other ideas and other things that I've wanted to write, and draw, and maybe sing, and all of those other things would likely work in a different format. A prettier format, with lots of colors and pictures and a lot more things that are happy and forward-looking, and less faux-op/ed voice and more of my voice. More like my first posts on this blog were, back in May of 2004, when the name of the blog was less serious, and the blog was less serious, and in so many ways better and more fun to write.

So over six years and more than 800 posts later, I'm saying goodbye to hsuperpolitical. Unlike professional bloggers, this will not be a smooth and seamless transition; there is no definite timeline for when my new random side project will be up and running. So if you don't mind having an inactive feed in you RSS, stay tuned to this channel; I'll post an announcement here once I've gotten the new act together.

Thanks all who have read and commented. The next one is going to be even better.

-hsuper

summary of u.s. suit against arizona's interference with immigration policy

2010-07-17T17:17:00.004-04:00

Nerissa at The Opportunity Agenda has a good, brief summary of the complaint:

1. The Arizona law, as a whole, is invalid because it sets forth a state-level immigration policy that interferes with the federal government's preeminent authority to administer and enforce immigration laws; and

2. Sections 2-6 of the Arizona law are invalid because each section either conflicts with, or undermines, established Congressional objectives, federal enforcement and policy priorities, and/or existing federal laws and Constitutional principles.

Basically, Supremacy Clause, fools. What was AZ thinking?

what the frack?

2010-07-15T06:56:00.001-04:00

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Obesity. The BP oil spill. Environmental degradation. Food poisoning, especially from E.coli O157:H7. It's all connected, across multiple networks of industry, lobbyists, political and parochial interests, and markets. But this post is just about one such connection, a lesser discussed link between so-called "natural gas" and degradation of water used for agriculture and human consumption.

An increasingly popular and reckless gas and oil drilling technique, known as "hydraulic fracking" (for non-BSG fans, click here for why the term is both hilarious and appropriate) has led to the quarantine of cattle in Pennsylvania, due to wastewater leakage. Fracking introduces pollutants such as benzene into our food system. Benzene exposure can lead to anemia, cancer, and death.

ProPublica has been doing great investigative journalism on fracking, and a new HBO film, Gasland, also exposes the practice.

Trailer

The Nation also published an expose on fracking last month, beginning with this sharp observation:

In recent years, a broad coalition of energy analysts and government officials have embraced domestic natural gas as a promising "bridge fuel" that could help smooth the transition from more carbon-intensive fossil fuels like oil and coal to renewable energy sources like solar and wind. The catch, though, is that the natural gas industry shares the same history as other energy industries operating in the United States. A string of recent disasters—including the TVA coal ash spill, the Massey coal mine explosion and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill—have demonstrated all too vividly that failure to regulate and oversee resource extraction can lead to catastrophe.

The most important piece of the observation is that, despite the green-washing campaign of the natural gas industry, it is still a fossil fuel. Even though sold as a "bridge fuel," it is not substantially different from oil and coal in terms of the need to engage in extraction methods that are hazardous to our water, air, and food. And while it "burns cleaner" in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide and other pollutants given off relative to energy produced, it is at the end of the day a major producer of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Moreover, natural gas itself, primarily methane, is dramatically more harmful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas if leaked directly into the atmosphere.

Call it "natural" gas and "hydraulic fracturing," but it is still tearing up the soil and earth relied on for farming/drinking/living to get to polluting and unsustainable fossil fuels. Not all that different from deepwater drilling, even if going by another name.

science!: complex life may be 2 billion years old, rather than 600 million; nasa discovers 750 possible extrasolar planets

2010-07-13T06:21:00.002-04:00

Apparently paleobiologists' minds are exploding:

The discovery in Gabon of more than 250 fossils in an excellent state of conservation has provided proof, for the first time, of the existence of multicellular organisms 2.1 billion years ago. This finding represents a major breakthrough: until now, the first complex life forms (made up of several cells) dated from around 600 million years ago.

Particularly interesting given the estimated age of the Earth (4.54 billion years); this would mean that complex life may have evolved much earlier in the planet's history than previously predicted, and prior to the Cryogenian (a.k.a. "snowball Earth") and subsequent Cambrian Explosion that is believed to have resulted in the ancestors of modern animals.

NASA's Kepler Mission has discovered 750 potential planets in a mere 43 days within a tiny fraction of the sky. Prior to Kepler's discoveries, only 461 planets outside the solar system had been identified.

UC Berkeley researchers found that Tibetans have evolved in a mere 3,000 years to better deal with high-altitude life, through selection for a gene that keeps blood hemoglobin levels low. 87% of Tibetans have this gene, compared to only 9% of ethnically-similar Han Chinese.

Recycling at its best: Scientists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center have transformed their outdated particle accelerator into the world's brightest X-ray laser:

[T]he ultimate goal envisioned for the SLAC laser is far more ambitious — to take pictures of individual molecules like proteins in a few millionths of a billionth of a second before the molecules are blown to smithereens.

“We are going into the arena of biology and trying to take snapshots of the worker molecules in people’s bodies,” said Joachim Stöhr, the director of the laser center.

november ca prop numbers

2010-07-12T06:54:00.000-04:00

Calitics has the assigned Proposition numbers for California's November ballot, with Robert Cruickshank's first-take leanings on each initiative:

Prop 18: The $11 billion water bond. Leaning no.

Prop 19: Cannabis legalization. Oh hell yes. This is one of the 2 or 3 most important initiatives on the November ballot. It's a must-pass.

Prop 20: Expands Prop 11 redistricting commission to include Congressional races, which could cost Democrats seats in the House. This is a definite no.

Prop 21: The state parks initiative, raising the vehicle license fee by $18, keeping all parks open at restored hours, reducing the maintenance backlog, and allowing all Californians with a registered vehicle to get into any park free of charge. Another obvious yes.

Prop 22: Bans state government raids on local government funds for good. Given what I wrote earlier today you shouldn't be surprised I lean yes on this one as well. Austerity is not good, and if we can contain it at the state level, then it's easier to force the issue for new revenues at the state level as well.

Prop 23: Repeal of AB 32, the state's landmark global warming law, an initiative funded by $2 million in campaign contributions from oil companies. Think of it this way: Prop 23 reverses AB 32. This is one of the 3 most important initiatives on the ballot, and it absolutely must be defeated.

Prop 24: Closes corporate tax loopholes that adds at least $1.7 billion annually to the budget deficit. Another obvious must-pass, though it'll be interesting to see the big corporations argue against this one. Of course, as we saw in Oregon in January, voters are not likely to look favorably upon corporate arguments in favor of unaffordable tax breaks.

Prop 25: Restores majority rule for the state budget process. This is the 3rd of the extremely important initiatives. We cannot afford to let this one fail. We'll need an all-out effort between now and November to pass it.

Prop 26: The antithesis of Prop 25, Prop 26 would require a 2/3 majority for fees. Just as Prop 25 must pass, Prop 26 must fail.

Prop 27: The antithesis of Prop 20, but in a good way - this eliminates the Prop 11 redistricting commission entirely. I'm probably going Yes on this one, since I don't really think a bunch of affluent white men count as a representative sample of the people of California. The whole Prop 11 commission was a bad idea to begin with, a "solution" to a non-existent problem.

health news: being a sports fan is good for your health, being an american smoker... not so much

2010-07-11T06:14:00.001-04:00

Being a sports fan is good for your mental health.

CDC: Cigarettes in the U.S. may be more toxic than those sold in other countries.

Inappropriate use of prescription drugs now causes as many emergency room visits as illegal drug use.

A whooping cough epidemic hits California. There is no vaccine shortage, and hospitals and counties receive the vaccine for free from the state health department. The cause of the epidemic? Parents and kids not getting vaccinated.

Oregon and the District of Columbia have the best comprehensive sexual education programs, in terms of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

Amid reports of hundreds of BP oil spill cleanup workers getting sick (including 54 in just two weeks), a study critiques the failure to learn from health effects of the Exxon Valdez spill on those cleanup workers.

The Pentagon issues a new policy for soldiers at risk of mild traumatic brain injury (concussions), including a mandatory 24-hour rest period after exposure to a nearby explosion.

the costs of (bad) school desegregation

2010-07-08T06:47:00.007-04:00

Disclaimer: this post is based on a review of the discussed book; I have not read the book itself. These are thus initial thoughts, and I'm open to critique or superior interpretations/analyses from anyone who has read the book, or similar research more carefully.

Is it possible that academic underperformance of school-age African American children is a result of the 1960s-1980s federal court-driven desegregation efforts? Stuart Buck thinks so. Emphasizing the link between historical school integration and development of a culture of "social disapproval of academic success among black students," Buck argues that the way that school desegregation was implemented--by closing down all-black schools and placing the students into all-white schools with all-white teaching staff and principals--led to an atmosphere of "hostility and contempt from white students" and "the soft prejudice of low expectations from racist teachers." Buck concludes that, as a result, "[m]any [black students] in such schools began to associate education with unsympathetic whites, to reject their studies, and to ostracize academically successful black students for 'acting white.'"

Hence the name of his new book, Acting White: The Ironic Legacy of Desegregation. Slate book reviewer Richard Thompson Ford summarizes the "acting white" problem thusly:

Many blacks—especially black young men—have come to the ruinous conclusion that academic excellence is somehow inconsistent with their racial identities, and they ridicule peers for "acting white" if they hit the books instead of the streets after school.

Buck seems to argue that this black student culture that devalues intellectual pursuit is responsible for the underperformance of black students. It seems that such a claim may be a stretch; is it really just "peer pressure," at the end of the day, that accounts for academic achievement gaps, or are the gaps themselves directly caused by the "soft" prejudices that Buck sees as the cause of "culture," and the "culture" then just another symptom? The reviewer, Ford, similarly points out that a narrow focus on how "acting white" plays out within schools neglects a larger trend of "belligerent youth subculture among poor blacks that rejects mainstream institutions generally," a subculture that Ford ties to social isolation associated with White Flight, corresponding to the same period of court-ordered desegregation of schools that Buck focuses on. Such social isolation, Ford argues, was magnified by the way that desegregation was implemented, which primarily placed black students in white schools with white staff, meaning that where previously teaching and principal jobs in black community schools provided locally-based professional jobs (where some of the brightest of the community might serve as role models), the elimination of these positions led to educated black professionals pursing "mainstream" industry jobs and moving into the suburbs, resulting in an African American "brain drain."

I'm not sure that I buy Buck's line of thinking wholesale; it seems that identifying the core problem as "belligerent youth subculture" (in Ford's words) is giving up on the logical train of thought too early on in the process. Ford seems to push the envelope a bit further by looking at institutions outside of schools (namely the police), but keeps generally within the bounds of Buck's issue with black "culture." But this is maybe just a semantic disagreement over whether this documented "culture" is a symptom or the actual problem. The important issue raised by both Buck and Ford is that desegregation as has been applied has had unintended negative consequences. The solution may be, as suggested by Buck, to embrace experimentation (read: vouchers) and soften contemporary orthodoxy regarding integration as the primary (and sometimes sole) objective, something that Ford points out may be necessary anyway given the most recent Supreme Court rulings against continued voluntary integration efforts. But it is also important to note, as Ford does not, that equally well-documented were the very real, measurable negative effects of segregated schools on African American youth. Buck and Ford may critique Brown v. Board of Education in retrospect, but the Supreme Court made that ruling, and subsequent desegregation rulings, with careful attention to the fact that separate was, in fact, inherently unequal. Any "experimentation" or reformed thinking regarding how to best (or, perhaps, whether) desegregate America's rapidly re-segregating schools must keep in mind that even if past desegregation did not actually produce equality, equality was the goal. And it should still be a goal today.

in brief: obama the 15th best prez, dems on the attack, paying big oil to destroy our coasts

2010-07-07T06:26:00.002-04:00

- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, c.1935

President Barack Obama is the 15th best President of the United States of America. FDR is the best, again. Duh.

In The Political Brain, neuroscientist and progressive framing guru Drew Westen says that it is not enough to give Americans a good idea of how you stand for what they believe in, but that a successful political party must also explain why the opposing party is out-of-touch with average Americans. Democrats seem increasingly willing to take this advice and connect Republicans with the failed Bush Era.

55% of Americans have faced work-related problems (unemployment, hours reduction, etc.) during this recession, including 32% who have been unemployed at some point.

The NRA is opposing the nomination of U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court; Republican Senators are expected to squirm in fear and also oppose the nomination as a result. In other news, the sun rose this morning, and is expected to set this evening.

Americans are subsidizing Big Oil companies to the tune of an average of $4 billion dollars a year.

The oil is still leaking into the Gulf of Mexico and devastating the Gulf Coast. It is still the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, and it is still getting worse. The Gulf Coast needs massive government intervention, and complete and total corporate responsibility from BP and all other responsible parties. Individuals can help by calling or writing their elected representatives, and by giving to organizations like the Baton Rogue Area Foundation.

good news: revival of small-town movie houses

2010-07-06T06:51:00.004-04:00

-Star Cinema, Stayton, Oregon

Because bad news every day is a bummer, here's some good news: small towns across the country have banded together to revive their old movie theaters. Not as wildly successful money-makers, but as the community-building, congregation points they were once before. From NYT:

“If we were in Los Angeles or Phoenix, the only reason to go to a movie would be to see it,” said Cecile Wehrman, a newspaper editor who, with members of the nonprofit Meadowlark Arts Council resuscitated the Dakota in Crosby, its plush interiors now a chic black, red and silver. “But in a small town, the theater is like a neighborhood. It’s the see-and-be-seen, bring everyone and sit together kind of place.”

The revival is not confined to North Dakota; Main Street movie houses like the Alamo in Bucksport, Me., the Luna in Clayton, N.M., and the Strand in Old Forge, N.Y., are flourishing as well. But in the Great Plains, where stop signs can be 50 miles apart and the nearest multiplex is 200 miles round trip, the town theater — one screen, one show a night, weekends only — is an anchoring force, especially for families.

It is a tradition that comes with a delicate social choreography (kids up front, teenagers in the back — away from prying parental eyes) and in spite of nature’s ferocity (subzero temperatures can freeze the coconut oil for the popcorn machine).

What works in one town may not work in another, but cultural observers from Malcolm Gladwell to Robert Putnam will agree that community-strengthening institutions like these are definitely good things.

So yay for good news.

in brief: a(nother) critique of third parties, bad economic news, ca is crazy

2010-07-05T06:37:00.008-04:00

Chris Bowers breaks down the potential of the Green Party in 2000, its failure, and the subsequent rejection of a third party approach by America's populist left.

Bad economic news in terms of steady unemployment with few new jobs, and a sluggish housing market. Economists urge extension of unemployment benefits as essential to maintaining the fragile recovery

In 2008, California passed a ballot initiative, Prop. 11, that created a citizens' commission of amateur redistricters, for purposed of drawing district lines for the state legislature. Of 40 million Californians, only 309 cared enough to properly fill out the entire lengthy application to be on the commission. Oh yeah, and the current pool of eligible members is 62% non-Hispanic white (CA: 42.3%), 62% male (CA: 50%), and 79% over-$75,000/yr income (CA median income: $61,017). So, you know, super-representative as well (where's that sarcasm-font when I need it?). (h/t Calitics)

Robert Cruickshank takes on the anti-High Speed Rail media of California, meanwhile pointing to a new study showing that High Speed Rail is a wild success all over the globe.

The oil is still leaking into the Gulf of Mexico and devastating the Gulf Coast. It is still the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, and it is still getting worse. The Gulf Coast needs massive government intervention, and complete and total corporate responsibility from BP and all other responsible parties. Individuals can help by calling or writing their elected representatives, and by giving to organizations like the Baton Rogue Area Foundation.

heroes

2010-07-04T16:21:00.002-04:00

To what degree need our heroes be immaculate to be worthy of admiration?

Two case studies for this Fourth of July, one wry and one stern.

First, humorously taking down Ben Franklin as perhaps less-witty than perceived:

But a while back I realized that not all the wit and wisdom contained in Poor Richard’s Almanac was equally witty or equally wise. It happened like this: Feeling that my life had lost direction over the years, that I had strayed too far from the path of the righteous, I decided last winter to go back and take a Poor Richard refresher course, in the hope of reconfiguring my moral and ethical infrastructure. In doing so, I was stunned to discover how many of Franklin’s axioms failed the acid test of validity and usefulness.

The first thing I noticed was that a lot of Franklin’s folksy little gems were a bit on the obvious side, the sort of things anyone but an outright idiot would already know. [...]

But it wasn’t just that the sayings were banal and obvious. What was worse, I discovered as I proceeded with my brushing-up project, was when I began to notice that not all of the sayings were equally clever.

Second, reflections on the life's work of the late Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) and his younger embrace and maturing rejection of racism in its most invidious forms:

[Byrd] had been an Exalted Cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1940s. As he moved toward a political career after World War II, he wrote to a notorious bigot, the Democratic Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, to rage at President Truman’s efforts to integrate the military: “I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels.”

That letter was not unearthed until the late 1980s, but by then Byrd had long since renounced and apologized repeatedly for his ugly past, with words as well as deeds, including his avid support for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in 1983. Byrd referred to his K.K.K. association in interviews as an immutable stain. He always noted with rue, not complaint, that it would haunt his obituaries. He wasn’t wrong. But when those obituaries finally appeared last week, after his death at 92, Byrd’s résumé in racism was dwarfed not just by his efforts to atone for it but by his legislative achievements on many fronts during his epic Senate career.

In his eulogy of Sen. Byrd, President Obama, perhaps the epitome of the "race mongrel" the younger Byrd railed against with such malice, answers the previous question thusly:

"We know there are things he said and things he did that he came to regret," President Obama said on the steps of the West Virginia capitol in Charleston, W.Va., referring to an early conversation he had with Byrd.

"He said, 'There are things I regretted in my youth. You may know that.'

"I said, 'None of us are absent some regrets, senator. That's why we enjoy and seek the grace of God.'"

"And as I reflect on the full sweep of his 92 years, it seems to me that his life bent toward justice," Obama said. "Robert Byrd possessed that quintessential American quality, and that is the capacity to change, a capacity to learn, a capacity to listen, a capacity to be made more perfect."

Happy Independence Day.

priming the pump works

2010-06-09T06:00:00.000-04:00

When it comes to cholera outbreaks, removing the pump handle is a good idea. But when it comes to restarting an economy in recession, you want to prime the pump.

The New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's peacetime plan to "prime the pump" of the economy through massive emergency federal spending on projects that both built up the U.S. infrastructure and also created more jobs, was wildly successful. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise. If someone claims that only the U.S. entering World War II saved the country from the Great Depression, you might reply that the War-driven ramp up in manufacturing only did half the job, or less than half the job. During FDR's first 8 years (1932-1940), prior to the U.S. entering the war, the economy grew 58% (as measured by GDP), whereas during the 5 years the U.S. fought in WWII (1940-45), the economy grew 56%. I know, we can quibble with the analysis of the numbers, but the point is that the New Deal was a key component to the economic recovery after the Great Depression, and did dramatically stem the suffering of Americans during those worst of times.

All this to say that the Obama Administration's new plan to slash domestic federal spending by 5% is a very, very bad idea. I'm not sure why he thinks anyone cares more about the federal government's growing deficit than about not having a job, but a Hoover-like austerity approach simply will not work. Just look at where Gov. Schwarzenegger's austerity efforts of slashing education, health, transit, and other public services has gotten California.

Really bad idea. The Media Consortium calls this a Wall Street-driven economic plan, and lays out alternatives to supporting the destruction of our safety net and infrastructure.

already 4 times the size of exxon valdez?!?

2010-06-08T06:00:00.001-04:00

Another sobering image from Information is Beautiful by David McCandless, an incredibly site.

h/t ST.

Of course, there is a more direct impact that we're now seeing:

A dead Northern Gannet covered in oil lies along Grand Isle Beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana May 21, 2010. A member of Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research tagged the spot of the location of the incident. (REUTERS/Sean Gardner) # [via the Boston Globe]

Meanwhile, Congress and the Obama Administration are moving to pass a bill that would make liability for oil spills unlimited, rather than the current $75 million cap.

51% of public opposes offshore drilling

2010-06-07T15:27:00.002-04:00

Until the BP offshore oil well exploded and began leaking 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil each day into the waters off the Gulf Coast, a full 60% of Americans supported expanded offshore drilling. This is reflective of a very successful campaign to convince Americans that more offshore drilling would somehow affect either the price of gasoline and/or reduce dependence on oil imported from other countries, despite the fact that even completely accessing all U.S. offshore oil reserves would result in only 1%-2% of domestically consumed oil to be produced domestically, and then only 25 years into the future.

The BP underwater oil fountain seems to have shown Americans the unnecessary risk run by seeking out relatively small amounts of oil in areas that are dangerous to explore in: not only dangerous for the environment, but for the workers employed in these drilling platform. A new CBS Poll shows that 51% of Americans now oppose expanded offshore drilling, a huge swing from previous surveys. Chris Bowers has a more detailed analysis at OpenLeft.

may is asian american heritage month

2010-05-30T06:00:00.003-04:00

President Obama recognized Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month earlier this week, recognizing the Vietnamese and Cambodian American fishermen of the Gulf Coast impacted by the BP oil disaster, and noting key contributions of APIAs to the United States:

Around 6:25, he makes a joke about it being easier to spot Secretary of Education Arne Duncan than Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, which is either a joke about Secretary Locke being short, or about not being able to spot him in a room full of APIAs.

Also cool, Jenn Fang at Change.org has 10 Facts You May Not Know About Asian-American History (h/t angry). Here are some good ones:

1). The first Asians whose arrival in America was documented were Filipinos who escaped a Spanish galleon in 1763. They formed the first Asian-American settlement in U.S. history, in the swamps surrounding modern-day New Orleans.

[...]

3). Because of their race, Asians immigrants were denied the right to naturalize as U.S. citizens until the 1943 Magnuson Act was passed. Consequently, for nearly a century of U.S. history, Asians were barred from owning land and testifying in court by laws that specifically targeted "aliens ineligible to citizenship." Even after the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, American-born children of Chinese immigrants were not regarded as American citizens until the landmark 1898 Supreme Court case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which established that the Fourteen Amendment also applied to people of Asian descent.

4). Among the earliest Asian immigrants, virtually all ethnicities worked together as physical laborers, particularly on Hawaii's sugar cane plantations. On these plantations, a unique hybrid language — pidgin — developed that contained elements of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean and English. Today, pidgin is one of the official languages of Hawaii, a state that is itself 40% Asian.

[...]

7). Anti-miscegenation laws that denied marriage licenses between interracial couples specifically prohibited intermarriage between whites and Asians. For example, the 1922 Cable Act revoked the citizenship of any female U.S. citizen who married an "alien ineligible to citizenship," a phrase repeatedly used in legal documents to refer to Asians.

nyc, sf rent-raising landlords see profiteering strategy fail

2010-05-29T16:02:00.003-04:00

From the NYT:

[J]ust like [Harlem's] Riverton and [East Manhattan's] Stuyvesant Town, the owners of [San Francisco's] Parkmerced sought to take advantage of a roaring market to replace rent-regulated residents with tenants able to pay far higher rates.

The owners in all three cases invested substantial sums in upgrading the aging buildings and renovating some apartments. But ultimately they failed to increase revenue enough to cover the debt payments on the properties, which were heavily leveraged. The recession did not help.

“It’s pretty interesting that they have all ended up in the same place,” said Andrew Florio, an analyst at Real Capital Analytics, a research firm. “People assumed they could boost revenues by kicking people out and raising rents.”

house passes amendment to repeal dadt

2010-05-28T16:57:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the defense authorization bill sponsored by Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) that repeals the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" statute and implements the compromise White House/Senate/House agreement to repeal the policy at an undetermined point next year. Adam Bink at Open Left predicts that the repeal should be able to overcome the final hurdles of cloture to overcome the promised filibuster by Sen. John "Not Your Friend" McCain (R-AZ), conference committee, and President Obama's signature.

The final House vote was 234-194.

hillary is the most popular politician in america

2010-05-28T15:52:00.003-04:00

From Chris Bowers:

[A]mong all living politicians in the United States who have ever held elected office, Hillary Clinton the most popular.

That's right. Ever since she became Secretary of State, her favorables have soared into the mid-60's, putting her well clear of any other statewide officeholder in the country. The only national figures who are viewed as favorably as Clinton are Michelle Obama, Colin Powell, and David Patraeus. However, they have never run for office, which invariably lowers your favorables.

Chris then muses on her credentials to run for president in 2016 as the natural successor of the Obama Administration.

Unfortunately for Secretary of State Clinton, in 2016 she will be in violation of the "freshness test," which hypothesizes that no one can be elected to President after 14 years of being first elected to a major national office. With a caveat that you don't count years during which someone is Vice President, only one U.S. President, Teddy Roosevelt, has been able to overcome this rule. Secretary Clinton was elected as a Senator from New York in 2000, meaning that 2016 will be two years past her freshness date.

Vice President Joe Biden was elected to the Senate first in 1973, so he was past his date even for the 2008 election.

don't ask don't tell compromise reached; possible vote this week

2010-05-25T16:00:00.003-04:00

The American people don't want the American military to be used to advance a liberal political agenda. And House Republicans will stand on that principle.

- Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN)

Congress, led by Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) and Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Joe Lieberman (CTL-CT), may act this week on legislation to repeal the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, a 1993 law (thanks Bill!) that sanctions the official discrimination against LGBT servicepeople in the armed forces, and has resulted in over 13,500 service men and women being discharged from the military simply because they were gay.

No matter your stance on current levels or priorities of military funding, or the missions and pedagogy inherent in a military force, the undeniable fact is that the armed forces are pillars of modern American society, and as such have always been both reflective of the country's standing on various social issues as well as a potential site for better fulfilling the nation's progressive values. The armed forces served as an early institution where women found careers and merit-based promotion, with 2.5 million women serving in the armed forces since the American War for Independence. However, it has been the duly elected representatives of the American people, not the institutions of the armed forces themselves, that have brought about progress in the military. It was not the military itself, but the U.S. Congress that in 1941 forced the War Department and Army Air Corps to create an all-black combat unit, the Tuskegee Airmen (99th Fighter Squadron/332nd Fighter Group). The racial integration of the U.S. military forces after World War II by President Harry Truman (Executive Order 9981), 16 years before the Civil Rights Act, surely created a generation of veterans who had seen the possibilities of an integrated America and for whom the injustices and indignities of continued segregation in the civilian world was an unacceptable wrong worth fighting against.

So while Rep. Pence is factually incorrect with regard to how Americans feel about continued discrimination in the military based on sexual orientation (78% of Americans believe that openly gay people should be allowed to serve in the military), he is even more wrong in his understanding of the armed forces as an institution: it has long been and is a place that reflects Americans' willingness to put aside petty biases and bigotries as the country evolves and progresses.

1/3 of all millennials receive financial help from their parents or family

2010-05-24T06:00:00.000-04:00

h/t Craig Berger, Kristi Eston at Campus Progress writes on how the lack of job creation means that there are fewer opportunities for Millennial generation young adults to start off own their own lives than there were at the time when their parents, the Baby Boomers, were their age:

The economic opportunities for the Baby Boomer generation, born between 1946 and 1964, were vast. [Oregon State human development Professor Richard] Settersten notes that the current economic recession is making tasks that were once associated with the start of adulthood more difficult; now young adults are living with their parents longer or returning home later. In fact, Millennials are similar to the youth of the G.I. Generation (born 1901-1924) because they are slow to leave home and start families. For today’s young adult, the recession is largely blamed for the delaying of adulthood. In fact, half of Millennials still rely on financial support from their family, while a third of all 18 to 29 year-olds receive help from parents or other family members, according to the Pew Research Center.

Stone has since gotten a paid internship that has potential to turn into a full-time job, and soon plans to move out of his parents’ house. But as the study shows, many other recent graduates can relate to Stone’s story. Graduating seniors look at a bleak job market and the high costs of living on ones own. A 2009 Pew Research Center survey found 13 percent of parents with grown children said one of their adult sons or daughters had returned home in the past year. Such economic factors, however, are not the sole reasons for delaying adulthood, Settersten says.

Eston points out that while Congress--through passage of a Wall Street reform bill including a Consumer Financial Protection Agency--has correctly recognized that things like loans from higher education and credit card debt are increasingly a barrier to any sort of wealth creation for young Americans, stopping predatory banking practices helps, but will not be sufficient to move the next generation of Americans into full-fledged independence:

But what young people need most of all, to avoid living among their old trophies and stuffed animals, boils down to a single word: jobs.

good obama, bad obama

2010-05-23T06:00:00.000-04:00

Good Pres. Obama: EPA directed to create even higher fuel economy standards:

U.S. EPA and the Department of Transportation will start work on rules for passenger cars and light-duty trucks, which would go into effect for model year 2017 and take off where the last set of rules ends. The two agencies would also expand the program to include medium- and heavy-duty trucks for the first time, beginning with model year 2014 and running through 2018. The agencies hope to finalize the truck rules by 2012.

The memorandum also directs EPA to reduce non-greenhouse gas pollutants from motor vehicles, including nitrous oxide, particulates and sulfur dioxide, and for the Energy Department to help boost development of electric vehicle infrastructure.

The announcement comes roughly a year after Obama brokered a compromise among automakers, environmentalists and states to clear the way for a first-ever federal greenhouse gas emissions standard for passenger cars and trucks that was finalized last month. That rule will also ramp up the fuel economy of the nation's passenger fleet to 35.5 mpg by 2016, four years ahead of the schedule Congress laid out in a 2007 energy law.

While the presidential memorandum instructs EPA and DOT to work toward model year 2025, by law, the administration can only set fuel economy rules for five model years at a time, making at least two separate rulemakings likely. Federal regulators are required to issue rules at least 18 months before the model year being regulated hits dealer showrooms, meaning the 2017 standards would not have to be finalized until April 2015.

Bad Pres. Obama: Obama Administration moves Right of Bush Administration on privatizing public housing:

The Obama Administration's move to the right is about to give conservatives a victory they could not have anticipated, even under Bush. HUD, under Obama, submitted legislation called PETRA to Congress that would result in the privatization of all public housing in America.

[...]

The banks and developers make a fortune, with the taxpayers paying for it. The public loses its public housing property. The impoverished tenants lose their apartments, or have their rents go way up if they are forced into the private market. Homelessness increases. Government gets smaller. The banks and developers win. It is a Bank Bonanza! The poor and the public lose.

And a precedent is set. The government can privatize any public property: Schools, libraries, national parks, federal buildings - just as has begun to happen in California, where the right-wing governor has started to auction off state property and has even suggested selling off the Supreme Court building.

will kevin costner save the gulf coast?

2010-05-22T16:14:00.001-04:00

From GOOD Blog:

So apparently Kevin Costner (yes, that Kevin Costner) has spent millions of dollars over the last eight years developing a centrifuge-like device called Ocean Therapy that removes oil from seawater.

Placed on a barge, it sucks in large quantities of polluted water, separates out the oil and spits back 97% clean water....

[...]

BP has agreed to start testing Costner's inventions in the Gulf. The biggest Ocean Therapy unit can clean water at a rate of 200 gallons per minute, which is faster than the oil is leaking. If it works, this will totally make up for Waterworld.

Emphasis original.

"it's not about whether or not you have black friends; this is about how you're going to let people be treated in this country"

2010-05-22T06:00:00.000-04:00

Ben Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP, helps Rachel Maddow break down why its important to address Kentucky Republican Senatorial nominee Rand Paul's disturbing statements that equal opportunity laws like the Civil Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act should not exist:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Amanda Marcotte goes further, pointing to this as an important teaching moment regarding the American version of libertarianism, and how libertarian assaults on the Commerce Clause meld racism and laissez faire, anti-regulation capitalism:

Because self-identified libertarians are a tiny minority doesn’t mean that libertarian thought doesn’t enjoy widespread popularity amongst conservative Republicans. Indeed, libertarianism is the primary intellectual justification in this country for resistance to most social justice movements. (I use the term “intellectual” loosely here, but you know what I mean.) It is also the primary intellectual justification for unchecked corporate power that leads to disasters like our collapsed economy and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. And I would argue that the existence of the Republican party today depends largely on people who are invested in the latter exploiting people invested in the former for support and votes.

bp oil leak worse than believed

2010-05-21T16:58:00.002-04:00

The environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico continues, with an estimated 6 million gallons of oil leaked from an exploded oil rig now making its way into the Louisiana wetlands. BP claims that they are now capturing 5,000 barrels a day, the entirety of the previous official estimate. But the now-available live feed (thanks Sen. Boxer (D-CA)!) shows that the flow of oil seems just as severe as previously released still photos of the leak:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

It also appears that, as previously feared may happen, oil has entered an undersea current that may pull the oil around Florida and up the Atlantic coast:

Officials in Florida sought to reassure tourists that the state's beaches are clean and safe as government scientists said a small portion of the slick had entered the so-called loop current, a stream of fast-moving water that circulates around the Gulf before bending around Florida and up the Atlantic coast.

[...]

Tracking the unpredictable spill and the complex loop current is a challenge for scientists, said Charlie Henry, a NOAA environmental scientist.

The loop moves based on shifting winds and other environmental factors, so even though oil is leaking continuously it may be in the current one day, and out the next. The slick itself has defied scientists' efforts to track it and predict its path. Instead, it has repeatedly advanced and retreated, an ominous, shape-shifting mass in the Gulf, with vast underwater lobes extending outward.

win by winning

2010-05-20T12:10:00.003-04:00

Mike Lux at OpenLeft calls out the Senate Dems' deepening failure on Wall Street reform, citing both the Senate Dems' inability to create a strong and meaningful bill as well as their complete lack of coherent messaging:

[T]he Democrats in power make me crazier than any woman the Fine Young Cannibals may have been singing about. Both the policy and the politics of this banking issue could not be clearer: take on the power of the big banks and rein them in. It is as simple as it could be. But Chris Dodd is playing footsie with the bankers, Tom Carper is shilling for them on a full-time basis, and the lobbyists are working their magic. The message is getting muddled, the base is getting pissed, and the clear political edge Democrats have had on this issue is being lost.

This is definitely a cold shower after the thrill of progressive victories on Tuesday night, but really should serve as a reminder of how important primaries are. Not every Democrat is an ally to progressives because they have a (D) after their name; some, like Sens. Chris Dodd and Tom Carper, are in certain cases as much the opposition as Republicans. It is only by having progressive and/or populist Senators like Russ Feingold, Al Franken, Maria Cantwell, and Sherrod Brown that legislation seeking to re-regulate out of control institutions--Wall Street, in this case--will ever have the teeth to be effective.

As Mike Lux wrote this morning, the politics of this are as clear as the policy. Americans want a government that creates real, meaningful, and positive impact on their lives. And that requires governing Congressional majorities to pass not just what they think is the best possible legislation given the political environment (read: that lobbyists will let them pass), but to create law and policy that creates true economic security and opportunity for prosperity.