Americans in Prison

More than 1% of adult Americans are in prison at any given time. A new study shows that Americans incarcerate more of their citizens than any other country in the world. It is more expensive that higher education and it does not reduce crime.

"The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said."

Read the whole study below.
--- T

Prisons

Woman is More Qualified

"The truth is, I don't know if Obama can beat McCain, or what kind of president he would be if he were elected president. I do know that voting for someone because of what he sounds like or looks like is what's brought this country to where we are at the moment: behind countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, India, and Liberia where the electorate has been enlightened enough to choose the more qualified candidate -- even if she is a woman."
- Gina Nahai

The whole post here

The Last Debate

Both Hillary and Obama looked good and sounded fine. They're both very smart. I didn't see the whole debate but I am convinced that I would love to have a beer with either one and talk about health care or Iraq or civil rights with either one. And then I would love to play a game of pool with both of them - and whoever can beat me convincingly by sinking the 8-ball on a bank shot I would vote for.
--- T

Lunar Eclipse

Wednesday's lunar eclipse was fantastic! We watched in with binoculars for a long time. For once Seattle sky was clear so one could see the moon. Next one is in about two years.


Photo by Joshua Trujillo/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Cuba!

Holy Cow!

An undercover video captured some disturbing images of cows being pushed around by a fork lift or dragged by their legs to the slaughterhouse. That is no way to treat an animal that is giving its life to us so we could eat hamburgers! Shame on Hallmark Meat Packing Company! I will not eat their meat and I will not let my kid eat school meals on hamburger days (I don't anyways because the food is so bad).
--- T

Slaughterhouse video

Kosovo

Congratulations, Kosovo, for your declaration of independence! And good luck balancing between east and west. It's not easy being small, but you can be smart.
--- T

Saturday

I have not been following the news in the last couple of days. It's just been too awful to hear more negativity about how "Hillary is going down" and how unstoppable Obama is etc. Yeah, we'll see...
Below is a link about how the democratic party is condoning misogyny by its silence in the face of such negativity by the corporate media. Even Obama (advocate for "change") does not speak up, but gladly advances his political agenda at the expense of women.
Yuck!
--- T

Kathleen Reardon

Joseph Wilson: Battle-Tested

Joe Wilson wrote a very important article about why Hillary Clinton is the correct choice for the democratic presidential nomination. He articulates exactly what I've been feeling but unable to express into words. Every democrat needs to read this and think about the future. We cannot afford another republican president. I am posting the whole text here because it is so well written. --- T

Battle-Tested

With the emergence of Sen. John McCain as the presumptive Republican nominee, the choice for the Democrats in the 2008 presidential election now shifts to who is best positioned to beat him, in what promises to be a more hard-fought campaign -- and perhaps a nastier one -- than Democrats anticipated.

Sen. Barack Obama's promise of transformation and an end of partisan politics has its seductive appeal. The Bush-Cheney era, after all, has been punctuated by smear campaigns, character assassinations and ideological fervor.

Nobody dislikes such poisonous partisanship, especially in foreign policy, more than I do. I am one of very few Foreign Service officers who have served as ambassador in the administrations of both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, yet I have spent the past four years fighting a concerted character assassination campaign orchestrated by the George W. Bush White House.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the few who fully understood the stakes in that battle. Time and again, she reached out to my wife -- outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson -- and me to remind us that as painful as the attacks were, we simply could not allow ourselves to be driven from the public square by bullying. To do so would validate the radical right's thesis that the way to win debates is to demonize opponents, taking full advantage of the natural desire to avoid confrontation, even if it means yielding on substantive issues. Hillary knew this from experience, having spent the better part of the past 20 years fighting the Republican attack machine. She is a fighter.

But will Mr. Obama fight? His brief time on the national scene gives little comfort. Consider a February 2006 exchange of letters with Mr. McCain on the subject of ethics reform. The wrathful Mr. McCain accused Mr. Obama of being "disingenuous," to which Mr. Obama meekly replied, "The fact that you have now questioned my sincerity and my desire to put aside politics for the public interest is regrettable but does not in any way diminish my deep respect for you." Then one of McCain's aides said of Obama, "Obama wouldn't know the difference between an RPG and a bong."

Mr. McCain was insultingly dismissive but successful in intimidating his inexperienced colleague. Thus, in his one face-to-face encounter with Mr. McCain, Mr. Obama failed to stand his ground.

What gives us confidence Mr. Obama will be stronger the next time he faces Mr. McCain, a seasoned political fighter with extensive national security credentials? Even more important, what special disadvantages does Mr. Obama carry into this contest on questions of national security?

How will Mr. Obama answer Mr. McCain about his careless remark about unilaterally bombing Pakistan -- perhaps blowing up an already difficult relationship with a nuclear state threatened by Islamic extremists? How will Mr. Obama respond to charges made by the Kenyan government that his campaigning activities in Kenya in support of his distant cousin running for president there made him "a stooge" and constituted interference in the politics of an important and besieged ally in the war on terror?

How will he answer charges that his desire for unstructured personal summits without preconditions with a host of America's adversaries, from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Kim Jong Il, would be little more than premature capitulation?

Senator Obama claims superior judgment on the war in Iraq based on one speech given as a state legislator representing the most liberal district in Illinois at an anti-war rally in Chicago, and in so doing impugns the integrity of those who were part of the debate on the national scene. In mischaracterizing the debate on the Authorization for the Use of Military Force as a declaration of war, he implicitly blames Democrats for George Bush's war of choice. Obama's negative attack line does not conform to the facts. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I should know. I was among the most prominent anti-war voices at the time -- and never heard about or from then Illinois State Senator Obama.

George Bush made it clear publicly when lobbying for the bill that he wanted it not to go to war but to give him the leverage he needed to go to the United Nations and secure intrusive inspections of Saddam's suspected Weapons of Mass Destruction sites. Who could argue with that goal? Colin Powell made the same case individually to Senators in the run up to the vote, including to Senator Clinton. It is not credible that Senator Obama would not have succumbed to Secretary Powell's arguments had he been in Washington at the time. Why not? Obama himself suggested so in 2004. "I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,' Obama said. 'What would I have done? I don't know." He also told the Chicago Tribune in 2004: "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." According to press reports, Powell is now an informal adviser to Mr. Obama.

In his tendentious attack, Obama never mentions that Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspectors, declared that without the congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force the inspectors would never have been allowed into Iraq. Hillary's approach -- and that of the majority of Democrats in the Senate -- was to let the inspectors complete their work while building an international coalition. Hillary's was the road untaken. The betrayal of the American people, and of the Congress, came when President Bush refused to allow the inspections to succeed, and that betrayal is his and his party's, not the Democrats.

Contrary to the myth of his campaign, 2008 is not the year for transcendental transformation. The task for the next administration will be to repair the damage done by eight years of radical rule. And the choice for Americans is clear: four more years of corrupt Republican rule, senseless wars, evisceration of the Constitution, emptying of the national treasury -- or rebuilding our government and our national reputation, piece by piece. Obama's overtures to Republicans, or "Obamacans" as the Senator calls them, is a substitute for true national unity based on a substantive program. His marginal appeals have marginally helped him in caucuses in Republican states that Democrats won't win in the general election. But his vapid rhetoric will not withstand the winds of November. His efforts will be correctly seen by the Republican leadership as a sign of weakness to be exploited. While disaffected Democrats may long for comity in our politics after years of being harangued and belittled by the right wing echo chamber, the Rovians currently promoting Obama are looking to destroy him should he become the nominee. Obama's claim to float uniquely above the fray and avoid polarization will be short-lived. He is no less mortal than any other Democrat -- Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry -- all untouched at the beginning of their campaigns and all mauled by the end. We should never forget recent history.

In order to effect practical change against a determined adversary, we do not need a would-be philosopher-king but a seasoned gladiator who understands the fight Democrats will face in the fall campaign and in governing.

Theodore Roosevelt once commented, "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly."

If he were around today, TR might be speaking of the woman in the arena. Hillary Clinton has been in that arena for a generation. She is one of the few to have defeated the attack machine that is today's Republican Party and to have emerged stronger. She is deeply knowledgeable about governing; she made herself into a power in the Senate; she is respected by our military; and she never flinches. She has never been intimidated, not by any Republican -- not even John McCain.

Barack Obama claims to represent the future, but it should be increasingly evident that he is not the man for this moment, especially with Mr. McCain's arrival. We've seen a preview of that contest already. It was a TKO.

This article is adapted from a piece published in the Baltimore Sun on February 12, 2008

Hate is Not a Democratic Value

Disturbing trends are forming in the democratic presidential contest. I've had an unpleasant gut-feeling about the nomination-process for a while as I've watched TV (msnbc mostly) and listened to Air America radio (Rachel Maddow is the only one who seems reasonable) talk about the candidates Obama and Clinton. These are supposedly more liberal venues. Well, they are when it comes to Obama: he's such a superstar who cannot do anything wrong, but anything Hillary does is evil or bad or otherwise reproachable. I am so sick of the Clinton-bashing that I cannot watch my favorite show any more (Countdown with Keith Olberman) or listen to the radio. (When you listen to Rush Limbaugh you know he's going to say something stupid about the Clintons, but that's expected - you don't expect such bias on TV or liberal radio.)

Well, I am not the only one who's noticed how the media is framing Hillary Clinton, two prominent New York Times columnists wrote about it just today: Paul Krugman and Stanley Fish. Read their columns at links below. It is mind-boggling how many democrats are choosing to "eat their own". They have been listening to right-wing hate speech way too long and assimilated.
--- T

Paul Krugman

Stanley Fish

Washington Votes

Obama beat Hillary in Washington. I saw it coming as thousands more attended his rally than Hillary's (although she had thousands at her rally too). I was still disappointed, but the overall race is so even we don't know how it all ends up yet.

I think Obama-Hillary or Hillary-Obama would be a fabulous ticket if we end up in a tie when all the votes have been counted. Hopefully they can still be friendly after such a grueling battle.

Seattle Times

Hillary tulee Washingtoniin

Super-tiistai tuli ja meni, emmeka viela tieda kumpi demokraatti on puolueen presidentti-ehdokas ensi marraskuussa. Harvoin ovat esivaalit olleet nain tiukat Yhdysvalloissa. Republikaaneista John McCain on aika varmasti seuraava ehdokas.

Washingtonin esivaalit on nyt lauantaina. Yleensa ehdokkaat on jo melko varmoja valintoja tassa vaiheessa, eika Washingtonin vaaleilla ole paljon merkitysta. Tana vuonna kuitenkin demokraattien vaalit viedaan aivan viimeiseen pisteeseen, ennen kuin tiedamme kuka on seuraava ehdokas. Seka Hillary Clinton etta Barack Obama tulevat Washingtoniin kampanjoimaan. Hillary tana iltana ja Obama huomenaamuna. Me aiomme tyton kanssa menna kuutelemaan ja katsomaan Hillarya tana iltana! Kannatamme Hillarya monesta syysta: han on alykas, aikaansaava, kokenut, nainen, avoin, kansainvalinen jne.

Hillary on ollut vahan alakynnessa viime viikkoina. Myos mediassa hanta usein kohdellaan paljon negatiivisemmassa valossa kuin Obama, sekin vaikuttaa paljon. Katsotaan kuinka kay.
--- T

Super Tuesday

Tomorrow we will be wiser about who might be president. I still think Hillary ought to win, although I am conflicted about it. Sure, Obama would bring more excitement among the younger voters and he might be less controversial, but would he really get much done? (And there is so much to do...) What makes people think that the hard-core republicans would not attack him just like they attacked Bill Clinton for all the years he was president? Those who hate and despise will never rest when they perceive an 'enemy' who might take away their privileges.