Day: August 11, 2008

Impeachment Is In The Air

Not only is Bush facing hearings on his possible impechment but his butt buddy in Pakistan is about to face the same fate.

Pakistan’s governing coaltion is set to finalise charges aimed at impeaching Pervez Musharraf, the country’s president.

Provincial lawmakers were also set to begin tabling resolutions on Monday calling on Musharraf to step down or face impeachment.

Musharraf’s spokesman, however, said he will not resign, regardless of the mounting cases against him.

“There is no reason that he should resign. Everything they are saying is false, so why should he resign?” Rashid Qureshi said.

Pakistan’s national assembly, or lower house of parliament, is also due to convene later on Monday, ahead of the filing of the impeachment charges against the former general.

Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, but his rivals swept elections in February to set up a new government.

No president has been impeached in Pakistan’s turbulent 61-year history. The coalition claims it can get the two-thirds majority required in a joint sitting of both houses in parliament to strip Musharraf of the presidency.

Although Musharraf’s allies dispute that and have urged the longtime US ally to fight impeachment, they have advised the president against using his authority to dismiss parliament and the prime minister.

The coalition is trying to give Musharraf time to quit without facing the humiliation of impeachment, while ramping up the pressure with expected “no-confidence” motions in the four provincial assemblies, media reports said.

Wanted: Better Energy Policies

The WaPo is reporting that it is one of the most pressing of issues during this election season.

A new national poll shows broad public support for government action in the face of $4-a-gallon gas and other energy concerns, giving Republicans a rare opening to go on the offensive against congressional Democrats and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Nearly two-thirds of Americans now put a priority on “finding new sources of energy” over improving conservation — a significant shift since 2001 — and majorities support all of the five potential federal initiatives tested in a new ABC News poll.

There is overwhelming backing for stricter fuel efficiency standards, as large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents alike line up behind the idea. There is also widespread support across party lines for a more controversial proposal in the battle over energy policy: offshore oil drilling.

Overall, 63 percent want the federal government to lift its embargo on new drilling in U.S. coastal waters. Nearly eight in 10 Republicans and seven in 10 independents back the idea, as do just over half of Democrats in the poll conducted in partnership with Stanford University and Planet Green.

The new poll holds welcome news for Republicans’ approach in a campaign season that has otherwise left McCain and the GOP with few opportunities to trump Democrats.

In addition to offshore drilling, most voters support an expansion of drilling in wilderness areas where it is currently banned, although Democrats and independents are about evenly split on that concept. By contrast, Republicans are divided 50 to 49 percent on whether to increase taxes on oil company profits, something that nearly two-thirds of Democrats and 54 percent of independents favor. Overall, 55 percent support these new taxes.

Nuclear power, which McCain has trumpeted as a cleaner energy source than oil, fares the worst in terms of public support, with 44 percent supporting the construction of more nuclear power plants. But that is up 10 percentage points from three years ago, reaching its highest level in polls going back to 1980.

What to do–what to do?

Rust Belt Is Dying

Where’s it worst? Ohio, according to our analysis, which racked up four of the 10 cities on our list: Youngstown, Canton, Dayton and Cleveland. The runner-up is Michigan, with two cities–Detroit and Flint–making the ranking.

These, and four other metropolitan statistical areas, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, face fleeing populations, painful waves of unemployment and barely growing economies. By our measure, they’ve struggled the worst of any areas in the nation in the 21st century. And they face even bleaker futures.

Another brutal statistic all the cities share is a diminishing population. So far this decade, 115,000 people have left Cleveland, for other climes. Smaller changes in other regions can be just as painful. Nearly 30,000 people have left Youngstown, Ohio, and they aren’t being replaced by either new babies or new immigrants.

Still, the cities we found to be struggling don’t vary widely by age, and this factor had little influence in the rankings. The oldest city in our top 10, Scranton, Penn., had 45% of its population over 45; the youngest, Flint had 38% over 45.

The worst news is, of course, economic. When we looked at the most recent gross domestic product estimates for 155 metropolitan statistical areas estimated to have $10 billion or more GDP in 2005–economies about the size of Asheville, N.C., or Tallahassee, Fla.–the news was predictably terrible for the Rust Belt.

But yet, the voters in these areas latch onto the candidate that promises the best scenario and yet nothing has changed.  Go figure!

Professor’s Classroom

Morning and hello–tender minds.  It is a Monday and time for the dreaded quiz.  Today’s question is about American presidents.

This American president had a long relationship with a male senator.  It was rumored that it was a homosexual relationship, whispered but never proven.  Who was the president and who was his “friend”?

Time to Google your butt off.  This should be interesting.  You may begin and enjoy the learning experience.

Obama Spits On Affirmative Action

No Democratic candidate for president has ever come so close to calling for an end to the era of identity-based affirmative action as has Barack Obama.

Since 2004, the first black major party nominee from either party has been offering comments suggesting that economic status should match or even trump race and gender as a criteria for who should benefit from the program — though he has yet to propose a specific policy, let alone one that matches his rhetoric.

After four decades of affirmative action, Obama’s historic candidacy itself is seen by some as proof that such programs are no longer needed.
In recent weeks, affirmative action, a hot issue in previous elections, has returned to the presidential political debate, owing to comments by Obama and McCain and ballot initiatives proposing to end racial, ethnic and gender preferences in all taxpayer-funded programs — from university admissions to government contracts — in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska.

On the one hand, Obama opposes the current state ballot measures (McCain supports them), thus offering at least de facto support for the current policy that gives preference to minorities and women and is rooted in the programs begun by President Kennedy and later significantly expanded by President Nixon.

On the other hand, Obama’s said that his two daughters should not be given preferential treatment, owing to their relatively privileged upbringing, and has called for government to “craft” a policy “in such a way where some of our children who are advantaged aren’t getting more favorable treatment than a poor white kid who has struggled more.”
Such hints of a possible new policy focus are a relatively recent development from Obama, who once said that he had “undoubtedly benefited from affirmative action” in his own academic career, though he didn’t specify at what institution he had so benefited. Friends have since recalled him saying that he did not list his race on his Harvard Law School application, though the candidate has said only that “I have no way of knowing whether I was a beneficiary of affirmative action either in my admission to Harvard or my initial election to the Review. If I was, then I certainly am not ashamed of the fact, for I would argue that affirmative action is important precisely because those who benefit typically rise to the challenge when given an opportunity.”

Just how bad does he want to connect to the white, blue collar, low education voter?

Verizon UpDate #5

STRIKE AVOIDED!

Verizon said it has reached tentative agreements on three-year contracts with the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The two unions represent about 65,000 employees.

The tentative agreement will be presented to covered employees as part of the ratification process. The contracts include wage increases that total 10.5 percent over three years, said Verizon in a statement.

Union leaders and Verizon had failed to strike an agreement last week, and had extended talks, setting Sunday night as the new deadline.

Verizon has about 103,000 workers in its telecom unit which provides residential and small business telephone, broadband and video services.

Will be interesting to see the details of the contract–will the workers be screwed as with previous contracts in other industries?

Today In Labor History

11 August

Federal troops drive some 1,200 jobless workers from Washington D.C.  Led by unemployed activist Charles “Hobo” Kelley the group’s “soldiers” include young journalist Jack London and William Haywood, a young miner-cowboy called “Big Bill” – 1884

International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union receives CIO charter – 1937

Iraq’s Private Sector–It Sucks!

Yes, Irene, the surge can be said to be working, but unfortunately it has not help the private sector to resurrect.

Hampered by years of violence, a decimated infrastructure, a lack of foreign investors and a flood of imports that undercut local businesses, Iraq’s private sector, particularly its small non-oil economy, has so far failed to flourish as its American patrons had hoped.

In its absence, the Iraqi government has been sustaining the economy the way it always has: by putting citizens on its payroll. Since 2005, according to federal budgets, the number of government employees has nearly doubled, to 2.3 million from 1.2 million.

The impetus is not only economic: In exchange for abandoning the insurgency that plunged the nation into civil war, many of the 100,000 members of civilian patrols known broadly as the Awakening movement have been promised jobs in the security forces or in reconstruction, though many Sunni Muslim members complain it is not happening quickly enough.

But this growth has not come without problems. Already, a huge wage increase to government workers that was instituted — but then suspended because of fears that it was pushing up inflation — has underscored the difficulties of being far and away the largest employer in an unstable country.

Like so much else in Iraq, getting a job is complicated by politics and sectarianism. While the minority Sunni Muslims run a handful of ministries, they are all but barred from some others. The policy of de-Baathification, aimed at rooting out loyalists to Saddam Hussein after the American-led invasion, resulted in a de facto purge of high-ranking Sunni bureaucrats, a purge that continued informally in certain offices that were permeated by Shiite militias.

What Is The Cost To Show Support?

Want a yard sign expressing your support for Barack Obama or John McCain? Be prepared to pay for it.

The $5 price was $3 cheaper than the signs Mr. Obama hawks online, but Mr. Norris, 59, felt he shouldn’t have to pay anything.

Yard signs have morphed from being a simple display of support to an intricate system of raising money and building an online donor base.

When supporters of Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain buy signs or other campaign gear, they also turn over personal information that will be used by the campaigns over and over again. The campaigns even report the purchase of yard signs as political contributions to highlight their grass-roots support.

“In the future you’re going to see a lot of people charged, not because … [the campaigns] want the money, but because it gets you into their database,” said former Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, who led Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign in Texas. “If somebody gives you $5 or $10 for a bumper sticker, they will give you $5 or $10 later on. That’s the real reason to do it.”

But many people are willing to pay, perhaps because the historic campaign could make the signs valuable keepsakes.