Author: mhasegawa

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More on Corruption

Nationally the big story is Rod Blagojevich while here in Boston we have Dianne Wilkerson, Chuck Turner, and House Speaker Sal Dimasi.  Let’s look at what is happening with each of them.

Dianne resigned under pressure.  She had lost the election and would have ended her term in January.  She no longer had any influence so why the push to move her out.  It came from the State Senate leadership, from the press, from the black religious community.  Granted, the tapes of her putting cash into her bra were pretty dramatic, but at the time she resigned there had been an arrest only, not a grand jury indictment.  I’m pretty sure I’m right about that.  So why the intense pressure for her to resign?  Were people just tired of another Wilkerson financial mess?  After all her problems with her mortgage and taxes have been around for years.  Or is it gender related?  I just can’t help noticing that of the four politicians I mention in this post, she is the only women and the only one who has been forced to resign.

Chuck has had a lot of press conferences and rallies proclaiming his innocence.  His story has changed a little from “it was a campaign contribution” (which would have been illegal anyway) to “maybe it isn’t me on the tape taking the money”.  He has not resigned and City Council has not pushed the matter except to take away his committee assignments.  Chuck has also raised questions about the FBI.  Questions  which I have written about.

Sal DiMasi’s good friend, accountant and golf buddy was arrested for violation state laws about lobbying.  Although I think the situation stinks there has been, so far, no direct link to Sal except some email.  No one is asking Sal to resign from the House or even leave his post as Speaker.  Is email maybe less damning that video?  I wonder if House members are just letting the situation alone until January when there will be an election for Speaker.  It will be interested to see if he is re-elected. Expect more on this as time goes by. 

Then there is Blago.  He says he can’t tell us what is going on because his lawyer says to save it for court, but he’s not resigning.  Barack Obama can’t release his list of staff who had conversations with Blago which he says will clear the transition of any taint until U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald gives the OK.  Did Fitzgerald jump the gun here?  There has not been any indictment from a grand jury yet, just those very entertaining wire tap transcripts.  Christopher Hayes  blogging in the Nation asks

But here’s my question: My understanding of the law is that there’s a distinction between personal pecuniary interests/compensation and campaign fundraising. In other words: it would be manifestly illegal, obviously, if Blago was “selling” the seat in the sense of trading it fro cash for himself. But is trading the seat for fundraising help really illegal? and if so, doesn’t that mean that a huge percentage of political transactions are illegal, including all those conversations during the primary about Obama inducing HRC to drop out in exchange for fundraising help to retire her debt?

Using the Hayes standard of personal gain, Dianne is alleged to have taken cash for herself.  Chuck allegedly took cash to “take his wife to dinner” and we aren’t sure what the allegations are for Sal and Blago.

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W’s Last Minute Regulations

I am hopeful that the Obama Administration will find a way to overturn the slew of last minute regulations that the Bush Administration has been getting approved before he leaves.  The big problem is the time and effort is will take to ferret them all out and to do the legislative process in time to reverse them without having to re-do the regulatory process. 

So here is a great video about some of them – Bush’s Nightmare Before Christmas.  Funny, but very sad.

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Science Makes a Comeback

My father who was a physicist would, I think, be very pleased with Barack Obama’s science appointments.  He would have been appalled at the way George Bush treated scientists working on global warming for example.

In June 2003, CBS News  reported that

(CBS) President Bush dismissed on Tuesday a report put out by his administration warning that human activities are behind climate change that is having significant effects on the environment.

The report released by the Environmental Protection Agency was a surprising endorsement of what many scientists and weather experts have long argued — that human activities such as oil refining, power plants and automobile emissions are important causes of global warming.
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“I read the report put out by the bureaucracy,” Mr. Bush said dismissively when asked about the EPA report, adding that he still opposes the Kyoto treaty.

With the appointments of Steven Chu to be the Energy Secretary, Jane Lubchenco  to head NOAA, and John Holdren to be his science advisor, the Obama administration seems to be taking science and global warming seriously.  This appointments cover marine biology and physics and include a Nobel Prize winner and former head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

The Washington Post  reported today

President-elect  Barack Obama has selected two of the nation’s most prominent scientific advocates for a vigorous response to climate change to serve in his administration’s top ranks, according to sources, sending the strongest signal yet that he will reverse Bush administration policies on energy and global warming.

The appointments of Harvard University physicist John Holdren as presidential science adviser and Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco as head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which will be announced tomorrow, dismayed conservatives but heartened environmentalists and researchers.

I love that phrase “dismayed conservatives”.

I haven’t agreed with all of Obama’s appointments – particularly Governor Vilsack for Agriculture  (too invested in ethanol which takes too much energy to produce) – but on the whole, I think that we may finally be back on the right track.

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The President Elect and Basketball

I’m tired of Rod the Governor, whether the Cabinet is too conservative and status quo, and if Caroline Kennedy is really qualified to be Senator so I decided to write about Mr. Obama and basketball.

Nia-Malika Henderson wrote a nice little piece on Politico.com yesterday.

President-elect Barack Obama decided to talk a little trash Tuesday. After lauding his choice to lead the department of education and ducking a question about that distracting Illinois scandal, he let go with this:

“I think we are putting together the best basketball-playing cabinet in American history,” he said. “And I think that is worth noting.”

According to Henderson Obama had a great nickname in high school: Barry O’Bomber.  As to speculation as to who will be playing with him along with various cabinet members (Arne Duncan and General Jones) there is always Secret Service, other White House staff (like Reggie Love) and various current and retired NBA and college stars.  I know Charles Barkley is just waiting for an invite.  Wish I could find the picture I saw somewhere with then candidate Obama with the UNC team.

The President Elect is a Chicago Bulls fan, but the Boston Celtics are the team to beat.  And he and I both picked the UNC Tar Heels to win it all last year.  We were both wrong, but it looks like it might be a good pick again this year.

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Blackwater Indictments

This is, as Rachel Maddow might say, an underreported story.  The storyof the indictments of  the five Blackwater employees for killing civilians in Iraq should be big news, but it has been overshadowed by the arrest of Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojavitch.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died while we were occupying their country and “protecting ” them and they all can’t be prosecuted.  However small, I think this is a step in the right direction.  Now Blackwater the Company, and those at the Departments of State and Defense who were responsible for hiring civilian contractors to do the job our soldiers should have been doing need to join these five on trial. 

The New York Times reported the story  on December 8.  Jeremy Scahill wrote the same day for The Nation.

For more than five years, the Bush administration’s mercenary force of choice, Blackwater Worldwide, has operated on a US government contract in Iraq in a climate that has wed immunity with impunity. Today the Justice Department took the first concrete step to hold accountable the individuals responsible for the single greatest massacre of Iraqi civilians at the hands of an armed private force deployed in Iraq by the US government.

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The Nisour Square killings propelled Blackwater to international infamy and sparked demands from the US-installed Iraqi government for Blackwater to be expelled from the country. The Bush administration rejected those calls and in April renewed Blackwater’s Iraq contract for another year. Blackwater, the largest US security contractor in Iraq, has worked on a US government contract since August 28, 2003, when it was hired on an initial $27.7 million no-bid contract to protect the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer. To date, Blackwater has been paid over a billion dollars for its “security” work for the State Department.

No oversight, no accountability (until now) and all that money.  No wonder the Iraqis wanted to be able to prosecute contractors.

And in case you want to hear him as well as read him,  Amy Goodman  interviewed Jeremy Scahill for one of her shows.

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More Thoughts on Prop 8

In her The Last Word Column  in the November 24 issue of Newsweek Ann Quindlen wrote about gay marriage and the decision in Loving v. Virginia.

One of my favorite Supreme Court cases is Loving v. Virginia, and not just because it has a name that would delight any novelist. It’s because it reminds me, when I’m downhearted, of the truth of the sentiment at the end of “Angels in America,” Tony Kushner’s brilliant play: “The world only spins forward.”

I also wrote about Loving in my post Marriage in Massachusetts.  It is also one of my favorite decisions as well as a wonderful story.

The world is going to continue to spin forward.  The denial of Constitutional rights to a specific group can never last.  There may be one step forward (see Connecticut and New Jersey) and two back (California and other other states which have adopted anti-gay marriage statutes recently), but we will keep moving forward.

And then there is this great Jack Black video.  It has been out there for a while, but it is always worth seeing.

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Obama Polls and Senate Seats

So many stories, so little time.

There is the most recent NBC poll  that shows that

Two out of three respondents say they’re pleased with Obama’s early appointments and three-fourths believe that the level of his involvement in making policy has been exactly right.

Another two-thirds view the president-elect in a positive light — a rating that’s more favorable than the numbers Bill Clinton and George W. Bush received 1992 and 2000.

There is the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.  I think he lives in a world of his own.  It is not clear if he really talked to anyone about a price for the Obama Senate seat or if he was simply speculating outloud.  I guess we have to wait and see how this unfolds.  So far it seems unlikely that the President -Elect or anyone on the Transition Team was involved.

And will Caroline Kennedy be appointed to Hillary Clinton’s senate seat?  Ruth Marcus had an interesting take in the Washington Post yesterday.  Marcus writes, ” before getting all huffy about Caroline Kennedy’s qualifications for the job, let’s take a breath and remember Jesse Ventura and Sonny Bono. ”   Kennedy has written a number of books, worked with the New York City Schools, and is a lawyer – not terrible qualifications.

Those Senate seats seem to be creating lots of problems.  The Governor of Delaware appointed someone who is widely acknowledged as a caretaker until 2010 when Beau Biden might run for the seat.  That was controversial in Deleware.  I thought replacing Biden, Clinton, and Obama was supposed to be a piece of cake.  Guess not.

 

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The Real Value of Dustin Pedroia

I hope that the contract extension that was negotiated between the Boston Red Sox and Dustin Pedroia is a sign of good things to come.  We need to end the craziness of the huge smounts of money being paid to sports stars.  I’m not saying that $7 Million a year is chicken feed, but Dustin signed for less than he could have gotten so he can have contract security (through 2015) and stay in a place he loves.  And Boston is happy to have you, Dustin.

Tony Mazzarotti wrote in the Boston Globe the other day

Clearly, Dustin Pedroia could have held out for more. Maybe he should have. But in an age when professional athletes are criticized for making decisions based solely on money, we cannot possibly pass judgment on a deal that seems, in a word, reasonable.

He goes on to quote Pedroia

“I understand all that stuff,” Pedroia said when asked about giving up some of his long-term leverage. “I knew if I had gone year to year I would have made more money. I understand that without a doubt. But I’m in a place where they me treat me and my family unbelievable. I’m happy with this.

“I want to be here. I want to play for the Red Sox,” Pedroia added. “I don’t want to play for anybody else. It seemed right to do something.”

Now if the Sox can only find a catcher.

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Challenge to Obama’s qualifications

The Supreme Court has been asked to take a case which questions whether  Barack Obama is Constitutionally qualified to be President.  At issue is the fact that his father was not an American citizen even though his mother was and he was born in Hawaii after it was granted statehood.  The allegation is that he is not  a “natural born citizen.”

NBC has an interesting take on the situation concluding that it is unlikely the Supreme Court will intervene.  Politico.com adds an interesting piece of information:  Clarence Thomas is the one asking that the Court consider taking the case.

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide Friday whether to take up a case over president-elect Barack Obama’s citizenship — one of a few around the country seeking to nullify his election, but this one has an interesting lineage. It was referred to the high court by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s only African-American justice.

Maybe Thomas is just returning the favor — putting through a case that questions whether Obama should be president, after Obama said he wouldn’t have picked Thomas for the high court.

Can I believe that Thomas could be so petty?  You betcha!

A decision is expected on Monday.