I wanted to repeat a point I made yesterday. It is hard for me to find the language that gets across just how much a favor the Act 47 team did Mayor Luke Ravenstahl with the timing of their new five year plan. Ravenstahl, predictably, is already making noises like he is pretending to resist whole hardily embracing the new plan, but in the end in makes no difference. He has no choice.
I have just started looking for a copy of this report. It is apparently 290 pages long, so it might take a competent lawyer a little while to get through (especially if they could get $500 an hour), and it might take a dumbass like me much longer. But I would like the opportunity to try. We citizens can hardly be expected to assist our legislators in the business of running the government if we can’t see the documents from which they work. 290 pages is a tall order for a pdf, but in this day and age of 10’s, 100’s and even 1000’s of megabit bandwith and 16 gigabyte flash drives available for as little as twenty dollars, there is just no excuse for not making it available. The thing was typed up on a computer, and these days it must be almost cheaper to distribute the thing on a flash drive than to print it (considering how often our big printer breaks down at work, it might be cheaper when you take into account the service calls). But Google and a visit to the State DCED web page have failed me so far.
I suggested yesterday that the new plan is less ambitious than Bill Peduto’s proposal, and I stand by that, but … I have to admit the new Act 47 plan anticipates a lot of changes in State legislation. Dan Frankel, a Squirrel Hill State Representative, predicts the Allegheny County delegation in state government might oppose parts of this new plan. If you can’t get your own local people on your side in the State legislature, how can you expect help from Crawford or Lawrence county reps, or anyone else across the State.
A lot of people, local and state-wide, have an interest in opposing this plan, which most of us haven’t even had the chance to see yet. Gonna be an interesting June ‘round here.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
A tale of two plans ...
There is another twist in Bill Peduto’s release, today, of his outline for a new five year Act-47 plan. That twist is that Dean Kaplan and the State appointed Act 47 team sent City Council their five year plan. It is markedly less ambitious than Peduto’s plan. But because this plan from the Act 47 people can only be modified by Council with the Act 47 people's permission, it is safe (unfortunately) to say that Mr. Peduto's plan is now DOA.
By the way, the Act 47 people did the Mayor an incredible favor by waiting until two days after the primary to release their plan. The Mayor would have looked much less like the architect of our recovery and much more like the puppet he is.
The Act 47 plan would freeze the 37.5 parking tax where it is, rather than let it drop. The Act 47 people noted that rates did not come down when the tax went down, so apparently the City might just as well not reduce the tax further, but instead should use the money for infrastructure (woo hoo, 2.5 percent of parking tax revenue, we’re rich, I tell’s you).
The City is supposed to increase its contribution to the pension plan by 10 million a year. If the City can’t find that money anywhere (property tax windfall, anyone?) it would be allowed to go (hat in hand) to Harrisburg for an increase in the EMS tax, from $52 to $145 or for permission to expand the payroll tax (payroll preparation tax?) to universities and hospitals and other tax exempt groups.
There direct input on pay raises for union employees, changes in benefits, closing a fire station, eliminating some deputy fire chiefs, changes in bargaining and trail board rules, in short, a slightly less severe set of limits put on government than was done in 2004. Rich Lord didn’t say whether the plan included limiting take home cars.
I look when I get a chance for a copy of the report. But from Mr. Lord’s initial description, the plan looks like another just barely adequate effort to see us through the next five years. At some point there may be balloon payments we might not be able to meet. Then it will hit the fan.
By the way, the Act 47 people did the Mayor an incredible favor by waiting until two days after the primary to release their plan. The Mayor would have looked much less like the architect of our recovery and much more like the puppet he is.
The Act 47 plan would freeze the 37.5 parking tax where it is, rather than let it drop. The Act 47 people noted that rates did not come down when the tax went down, so apparently the City might just as well not reduce the tax further, but instead should use the money for infrastructure (woo hoo, 2.5 percent of parking tax revenue, we’re rich, I tell’s you).
The City is supposed to increase its contribution to the pension plan by 10 million a year. If the City can’t find that money anywhere (property tax windfall, anyone?) it would be allowed to go (hat in hand) to Harrisburg for an increase in the EMS tax, from $52 to $145 or for permission to expand the payroll tax (payroll preparation tax?) to universities and hospitals and other tax exempt groups.
There direct input on pay raises for union employees, changes in benefits, closing a fire station, eliminating some deputy fire chiefs, changes in bargaining and trail board rules, in short, a slightly less severe set of limits put on government than was done in 2004. Rich Lord didn’t say whether the plan included limiting take home cars.
I look when I get a chance for a copy of the report. But from Mr. Lord’s initial description, the plan looks like another just barely adequate effort to see us through the next five years. At some point there may be balloon payments we might not be able to meet. Then it will hit the fan.
Bill Peduto's turn ...
So I don't know how I got on Bill Peduto's press release email list, but I am happy to be on it. He sent out a press release today on his (as Council finance chair) outline of a new five year plan, which is in the form of a letter to Dean Kaplan and Jim Roberts. I believe they were involved in the first Act 47 five year plan. I had decided to post on it at lunch time (since I am at work), so Bram scooped me on this(athough not, as far as I can tell, the PG). Anyway, you can get to the plan at Preduto’s Council web page (link for the plan: http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/district8/assets/ACT47-5yrplan_letter.pdf).
First of all, the timing of the press release is interesting. If Dowd had won Tuesday’s primary (yeah, I know) I would like to think Bill Peduto would have approached Dowd about his plan. The letter is dated April 28th, indicating that it has already been sent, but Peduto could have delayed the public/press release of it until Dowd had had input. The letter indicates a copy was sent to Ravenstahl, presumably on the 28th.
Second, the plan itself is very interesting, very ambitious. Bram mentions Peduto’s final paragraph, which states that the plan can not be like a menu, that is, we can not simply choose easy parts and disregard the hard items. We need to do it all. Yet the “all” is no small matter.
Peduto calls for the State to take over municipal employee pensions and healthcare. That is absolutely huge, and begs a staggering number of questions. The implications for notion of contracts negotiated by municipal unions alone are big. Legally the idea of patching together all the different negotiated pension and healthcare plans at a State level … well, it could be done, but to get any savings a number of unions would have to agree to accept the same plan (or cafeteria of plans). Peduto does suggest having an auditing firm show local municipal retirees what will happen if we do nothing, perhaps as a precursor to reducing their benefits. Of course with modern computing, it would be easy enough to manage a vast array of different municipal health insurance and pension plans plans, although I’ll bet the contracting local health insurance and national pension administrator agencies would not be amused. But then there’s the question of our pension shortfall, how or if would that be made up. Peduto doesn’t say, perhaps hoping the State would volunteer a portion or all of the shortfall.
Peduto calls for a “Functional Consolidation of Municipal Services”. This is an interesting one. Peduto explicitly rejects the notion of the Nordenberg plan, a merger of Pittsburgh City and Allegheny County governments, with the Pittsburgh political government all but disappearing. He complains particularly that there is no explanation about what would happen to City debt in that plan, except to say it would remain with the City (whose residents would (practically) no longer have a voice in what rate they would be taxed at). But Peduto’s alternative has to be a nightmare for residents of Shaler or Brentwood. He proposes bringing certain services for all 130 plus of our neighboring municipalities (and the City) under “countywide” control. This would be for payroll, tax collection, personnel, law and presumably also purchasing and CIS. Peduto does not say this, but Presumably Pittsburgh’s existing systems are already large enough that they could simply be expended cost efficiently and the municipalities and the County government could pay us for our administering these systems on their behalf. I am sure the 130 municipalities will leap to be included in this part of the plan.
There are five other parts to the plan to look at (including our ling term debt), which I may do in a future post when I have more time. But I think you may have an idea of why I think Peduto’s is very ambitious, maybe too much so. On the other hand, if we don’t try to be ambitious, we are more likely to have to look at municipal bankruptcy as our only option.
First of all, the timing of the press release is interesting. If Dowd had won Tuesday’s primary (yeah, I know) I would like to think Bill Peduto would have approached Dowd about his plan. The letter is dated April 28th, indicating that it has already been sent, but Peduto could have delayed the public/press release of it until Dowd had had input. The letter indicates a copy was sent to Ravenstahl, presumably on the 28th.
Second, the plan itself is very interesting, very ambitious. Bram mentions Peduto’s final paragraph, which states that the plan can not be like a menu, that is, we can not simply choose easy parts and disregard the hard items. We need to do it all. Yet the “all” is no small matter.
Peduto calls for the State to take over municipal employee pensions and healthcare. That is absolutely huge, and begs a staggering number of questions. The implications for notion of contracts negotiated by municipal unions alone are big. Legally the idea of patching together all the different negotiated pension and healthcare plans at a State level … well, it could be done, but to get any savings a number of unions would have to agree to accept the same plan (or cafeteria of plans). Peduto does suggest having an auditing firm show local municipal retirees what will happen if we do nothing, perhaps as a precursor to reducing their benefits. Of course with modern computing, it would be easy enough to manage a vast array of different municipal health insurance and pension plans plans, although I’ll bet the contracting local health insurance and national pension administrator agencies would not be amused. But then there’s the question of our pension shortfall, how or if would that be made up. Peduto doesn’t say, perhaps hoping the State would volunteer a portion or all of the shortfall.
Peduto calls for a “Functional Consolidation of Municipal Services”. This is an interesting one. Peduto explicitly rejects the notion of the Nordenberg plan, a merger of Pittsburgh City and Allegheny County governments, with the Pittsburgh political government all but disappearing. He complains particularly that there is no explanation about what would happen to City debt in that plan, except to say it would remain with the City (whose residents would (practically) no longer have a voice in what rate they would be taxed at). But Peduto’s alternative has to be a nightmare for residents of Shaler or Brentwood. He proposes bringing certain services for all 130 plus of our neighboring municipalities (and the City) under “countywide” control. This would be for payroll, tax collection, personnel, law and presumably also purchasing and CIS. Peduto does not say this, but Presumably Pittsburgh’s existing systems are already large enough that they could simply be expended cost efficiently and the municipalities and the County government could pay us for our administering these systems on their behalf. I am sure the 130 municipalities will leap to be included in this part of the plan.
There are five other parts to the plan to look at (including our ling term debt), which I may do in a future post when I have more time. But I think you may have an idea of why I think Peduto’s is very ambitious, maybe too much so. On the other hand, if we don’t try to be ambitious, we are more likely to have to look at municipal bankruptcy as our only option.
So what lessons should we draw from Tuesday (my own version).
So what lessons should we draw from Tuesday (my own version).
First, during the campaign, we had a visit from a Ravenstahl volunteer. She didn’t try to persuade me when I told her I wouldn’t be voting for the Mayor, although she did ask about the household. I did not have a visit from a Dowd volunteer, to say nothing of the candidate (although I did get lots of emails). If I had been on the fence, which way would I have been pushed? I know I have advocated campaigning negatively, and I stand behind that, especially with this Mayor. But I think there needs to be more. If either of the independents running in the general is to have a chance, they will need even more to connect with City residents.
Which brings us to the next lesson. Len Bodack won in his first election when he had two popular progressives running against him (was it Mitch Kates? and Nancy Nozick? Who founded Lotus?). Natalia Rudiak won because two relatively popular candidates split a vote (and because, according to Chris Potter, she had volunteers knocking on a lot of doors). The threat against Ravenstahl this time may have been watered down because two candidates ran against him. So what will happen in the general if two independents run against Ravenstahl? Both Acklin and Harris have been, at some point, Republicans. So once again I propose that one of the two drop out, in exchange for becoming the Chief of Staff for the other if the other is elected. I would lean toward Acklin dropping out. Harris can run as an African American and the son of a famous Steeler. Acklin can provide the political skill and experience to help save the City.
Otherwise I think Ravenstahl out fund raises and watches them split the vote, possibly along similar lines as Tuesday’s election.
Independent(s), better start the campaign soon too. That was a mistake DeSantis acknowledged.
Meanwhile, just a mention, Gail Collins (in the NYTimes and in particular), drew our (my, anyway) attention to the fact that the Democrats in Senate are not doing all thy could with their majority. Not that the have 60 votes yet, but they are crumbling like a stale cake in the face of the diminished but still lock step Republicans. The Dem’s voted against funding the dismantling of the facility of Guantanamo Bay after having called for it to be closed during the last election campaign, and many voted for the amendment to the credit card reform bill that allows people to carry concealed weapons in National Parks (!). Republicans have always been willing to tell their constituents some unpleasant things (mostly about Democrats) while running, but Democrats seem to be in great fear of offending their conservative constituents.
First, during the campaign, we had a visit from a Ravenstahl volunteer. She didn’t try to persuade me when I told her I wouldn’t be voting for the Mayor, although she did ask about the household. I did not have a visit from a Dowd volunteer, to say nothing of the candidate (although I did get lots of emails). If I had been on the fence, which way would I have been pushed? I know I have advocated campaigning negatively, and I stand behind that, especially with this Mayor. But I think there needs to be more. If either of the independents running in the general is to have a chance, they will need even more to connect with City residents.
Which brings us to the next lesson. Len Bodack won in his first election when he had two popular progressives running against him (was it Mitch Kates? and Nancy Nozick? Who founded Lotus?). Natalia Rudiak won because two relatively popular candidates split a vote (and because, according to Chris Potter, she had volunteers knocking on a lot of doors). The threat against Ravenstahl this time may have been watered down because two candidates ran against him. So what will happen in the general if two independents run against Ravenstahl? Both Acklin and Harris have been, at some point, Republicans. So once again I propose that one of the two drop out, in exchange for becoming the Chief of Staff for the other if the other is elected. I would lean toward Acklin dropping out. Harris can run as an African American and the son of a famous Steeler. Acklin can provide the political skill and experience to help save the City.
Otherwise I think Ravenstahl out fund raises and watches them split the vote, possibly along similar lines as Tuesday’s election.
Independent(s), better start the campaign soon too. That was a mistake DeSantis acknowledged.
Meanwhile, just a mention, Gail Collins (in the NYTimes and in particular), drew our (my, anyway) attention to the fact that the Democrats in Senate are not doing all thy could with their majority. Not that the have 60 votes yet, but they are crumbling like a stale cake in the face of the diminished but still lock step Republicans. The Dem’s voted against funding the dismantling of the facility of Guantanamo Bay after having called for it to be closed during the last election campaign, and many voted for the amendment to the credit card reform bill that allows people to carry concealed weapons in National Parks (!). Republicans have always been willing to tell their constituents some unpleasant things (mostly about Democrats) while running, but Democrats seem to be in great fear of offending their conservative constituents.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Over forty percent
Over forty percent of Democrats in this city would rather see someone other than Luke Ravenstahl as Mayor. Not a majority, to be sure, but significant considering the Mayor spent over 600 grand on this campaign, and his opponents spent well under that.
Ad neither Pat Dowd nor Carmen Robinson is the child of the most famous running back, arguably the most famous Steeler, in Pittsburgh history.
Ad neither Pat Dowd nor Carmen Robinson is the child of the most famous running back, arguably the most famous Steeler, in Pittsburgh history.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Which are we?
The PG today has statements from the Mayoral candidates and also answers from each to specific questions. I am not going to go into specifics about their statements/answers except to cover an issue I think lies under the surface and yet is vitally important. Mayor Ravenstahl basically maintains the City is doing well, yet needs more work to secure it’s position in the future. Pat Dowd says the City is in trouble and needs leadership with transparency and accountability to guide us. Carmen Robinson talks about two Pittsburgh’s, and wants to reach out to the neglected one.
The gap between Ravenstahl’s position and Dowd’s position is what I want to look at (for the record, I agree with Robinson, but I don’t see much indication she will get anywhere in the primary). Is the City doing better than most cities in this economic downturn, with manageable problems on the horizon, or does the City have so much debt and obligations it can not recover without tough action now? Now, I credit the Act 47 five year plan with creating the surplus; it was written that way. The Mayor may have created a bigger or smaller surplus than was foreseen/feasible, but it was always supposed to be there, as were many of tax reductions the Mayor brags about, and the increased services. But evidently the plan was not intended to address our debt or our pension shortfall, and there is no way to turn 50 million (what’s left of our surplus after the ICA plundered it) into seven hundred million or two billion (whatever our total debt/pension figure is). Plus we are looking at problems with future healthcare costs. These are some of the issues Pat Dowd is talking about (btw, there is supposed to be a new five year plan, though I couldn't say what it will cover).
It is the difference between whether we are a desirable place to go/be in this economic downturn versus whether we are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and there is no one out there to help us out. If we go into bankruptcy, what will happen? We may renege on our debts, damaging our credit rating and making it harder to borrow on favorable terms for decades to come. We may throw our municipal pensions on the tender mercies of the State or the Federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. Our retirees may get pennies on the dollar (kinda makes you glad this is likely to happen on Ravenstahl’s watch).
Now I think the “City in trouble” line is likely true, though I don’t know how it will work out specifically under a Ravenstahl administration. I think at some point there will be a payment missed, City Council will squabble amongst themselves for a while, but eventually the Mayor and Council will jointly declare bankruptcy in Federal Court. It is possible that the State will step in and take direct control of the City before that happens (I am not sure about the legal rules here), although the only thing the State would be saving is face here, as they would not likely be happy about taking on the City’s financial issues. In the end, I think the City would continue, but I think it’s political power and prestige would be greatly reduced. City services would also be reduced for a long time to come.
Is Dowd the man to avoid this? Maybe. I don’t know that I trust him to be a magician, but he seems to recognize most of the crisis for what it is. His being in office, with an implied threat that he will declare bankruptcy if it is needed, might influence Harrisburg towards more generosity towards Pittsburgh.
That’s not much to hang a hat on, but that’s where we are.
The gap between Ravenstahl’s position and Dowd’s position is what I want to look at (for the record, I agree with Robinson, but I don’t see much indication she will get anywhere in the primary). Is the City doing better than most cities in this economic downturn, with manageable problems on the horizon, or does the City have so much debt and obligations it can not recover without tough action now? Now, I credit the Act 47 five year plan with creating the surplus; it was written that way. The Mayor may have created a bigger or smaller surplus than was foreseen/feasible, but it was always supposed to be there, as were many of tax reductions the Mayor brags about, and the increased services. But evidently the plan was not intended to address our debt or our pension shortfall, and there is no way to turn 50 million (what’s left of our surplus after the ICA plundered it) into seven hundred million or two billion (whatever our total debt/pension figure is). Plus we are looking at problems with future healthcare costs. These are some of the issues Pat Dowd is talking about (btw, there is supposed to be a new five year plan, though I couldn't say what it will cover).
It is the difference between whether we are a desirable place to go/be in this economic downturn versus whether we are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and there is no one out there to help us out. If we go into bankruptcy, what will happen? We may renege on our debts, damaging our credit rating and making it harder to borrow on favorable terms for decades to come. We may throw our municipal pensions on the tender mercies of the State or the Federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. Our retirees may get pennies on the dollar (kinda makes you glad this is likely to happen on Ravenstahl’s watch).
Now I think the “City in trouble” line is likely true, though I don’t know how it will work out specifically under a Ravenstahl administration. I think at some point there will be a payment missed, City Council will squabble amongst themselves for a while, but eventually the Mayor and Council will jointly declare bankruptcy in Federal Court. It is possible that the State will step in and take direct control of the City before that happens (I am not sure about the legal rules here), although the only thing the State would be saving is face here, as they would not likely be happy about taking on the City’s financial issues. In the end, I think the City would continue, but I think it’s political power and prestige would be greatly reduced. City services would also be reduced for a long time to come.
Is Dowd the man to avoid this? Maybe. I don’t know that I trust him to be a magician, but he seems to recognize most of the crisis for what it is. His being in office, with an implied threat that he will declare bankruptcy if it is needed, might influence Harrisburg towards more generosity towards Pittsburgh.
That’s not much to hang a hat on, but that’s where we are.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Couple of days, and the story I won't let go of ...
So there are a couple of days to go until the primary. I’m voting for Dowd. He does not strike me as perfect, but no one is, especially among politicians. Still, he would be a clear step up from Ravenstahl, and Dowd’s the one running (yes, I am saying I regard Dowd's chances as better than Robinson's, and Robinson has not particularly impressed me either).
Bram is doing a fine job of covering that and other parts of the election (notably the South Hills and the West End, areas I know next to nothing about), so I urge you to visit the Pittsburgh Comet, or as I call it Bram’s Comet. Meanwhile, there is a small story that I have been following, about ACORN. I am not really following it that closely, but I did send a comment to OffQ, which they read on air last night. The set up is that last week they mentioned the story of the ACORN workers Stephen Zappala has accused of voter registration fraud. Now, I have to admit up front that some ACORN supervisors or offices might want to make themselves look good and so might have set up local quotas so they can meet some sort of registration goal. Apparently the national office says it does not set or condone registration quotas. At the same, it would surely be in the interest of the accused to workers to claim there is a quota for voter registrations. So far, from what I have read, there has not been an anecdotal, much less systematic investigation of ACORN’s actual voter registration effort that would indicate from a neutral source (ie, a registration worker not accused of fraud) whether there was a quota system. Maybe there is such a person or people, but the PG has not reported it yet.
But there are six or so ACORN temp workers accused of voter fraud. I assume the DA knows this because the forms were turned in. Were they flagged? ACORN says they would have been. From the reporting I don’t know if they were. Could they have been used to vote fraudulently? Maybe, you can construct a scenario where fraudulent voters travel from voting place to voting place, and vote in all these different districts. Of course, if that happened it would likely get out eventually (although by then we might be living in a communist country). I think this sort of concern is why ACRON tries as hard as it does to be transparent, to check registration forms. But ultimately, if ACORN is under the control of some evil organization, with millions of members who use fraudulent voting to increase their strength ten fold, then maybe anything could happen. A black man could be elected President.
Anyway, ACORN is also accused at the very least of clogging the elections registration system with registration forms, including and apparently most egregiously, the flagged forms. That was the line on OffQ last week I believe and this week, when my comment was read, Heather Heidelbaugh (sp?) was saying there is no (Pennsylvania? National?) law requiring ACORN to turn all forms in, even suspicious ones. Researching just a bit on Google, Wikipedia and the ACORN site, she may be correct about Pennsylvania. There is such a law in Indiana, and ACORN’s line is that when there is a question, the advice of their council is to turn all forms in. Look up the story on Spoul & Associates, and you will see why that is sound advice.
Why is the burden on ACORN to resolve problematic registration forms, anyway? There are several options for the County elections people that I can see. They could hire a temp service or outsourced firm to go through all the registration forms or just the problematic ones, and make calls themselves. They could set the problematic forms aside (we trust ACORN, right?), then go through when they are not gearing up for an election. If ACORN had marked many Republican registrations as problematic, when those people went to vote in would send up be red flags. Also, when they finally did go through the forms, if a pattern developed, they could alert the DA’s office or the FBI then and ACORN could be charged (the legislature might have to do something about the statute of limitations). Or the County elections department could ask for volunteers, say, lawyers like Heather H, who could put the time where their mouth is, and make some calls checking on registrations.
Anyway, I sent another comment to OffQ, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope that it will be read. This is one of those stories where the Republicans hope the Democrats are not going to stick their neck out, where the Republicans (and Stephen Zappala, apparently) hope that waving the flag will blind us to the hypocrisy of their charges.
Bram is doing a fine job of covering that and other parts of the election (notably the South Hills and the West End, areas I know next to nothing about), so I urge you to visit the Pittsburgh Comet, or as I call it Bram’s Comet. Meanwhile, there is a small story that I have been following, about ACORN. I am not really following it that closely, but I did send a comment to OffQ, which they read on air last night. The set up is that last week they mentioned the story of the ACORN workers Stephen Zappala has accused of voter registration fraud. Now, I have to admit up front that some ACORN supervisors or offices might want to make themselves look good and so might have set up local quotas so they can meet some sort of registration goal. Apparently the national office says it does not set or condone registration quotas. At the same, it would surely be in the interest of the accused to workers to claim there is a quota for voter registrations. So far, from what I have read, there has not been an anecdotal, much less systematic investigation of ACORN’s actual voter registration effort that would indicate from a neutral source (ie, a registration worker not accused of fraud) whether there was a quota system. Maybe there is such a person or people, but the PG has not reported it yet.
But there are six or so ACORN temp workers accused of voter fraud. I assume the DA knows this because the forms were turned in. Were they flagged? ACORN says they would have been. From the reporting I don’t know if they were. Could they have been used to vote fraudulently? Maybe, you can construct a scenario where fraudulent voters travel from voting place to voting place, and vote in all these different districts. Of course, if that happened it would likely get out eventually (although by then we might be living in a communist country). I think this sort of concern is why ACRON tries as hard as it does to be transparent, to check registration forms. But ultimately, if ACORN is under the control of some evil organization, with millions of members who use fraudulent voting to increase their strength ten fold, then maybe anything could happen. A black man could be elected President.
Anyway, ACORN is also accused at the very least of clogging the elections registration system with registration forms, including and apparently most egregiously, the flagged forms. That was the line on OffQ last week I believe and this week, when my comment was read, Heather Heidelbaugh (sp?) was saying there is no (Pennsylvania? National?) law requiring ACORN to turn all forms in, even suspicious ones. Researching just a bit on Google, Wikipedia and the ACORN site, she may be correct about Pennsylvania. There is such a law in Indiana, and ACORN’s line is that when there is a question, the advice of their council is to turn all forms in. Look up the story on Spoul & Associates, and you will see why that is sound advice.
Why is the burden on ACORN to resolve problematic registration forms, anyway? There are several options for the County elections people that I can see. They could hire a temp service or outsourced firm to go through all the registration forms or just the problematic ones, and make calls themselves. They could set the problematic forms aside (we trust ACORN, right?), then go through when they are not gearing up for an election. If ACORN had marked many Republican registrations as problematic, when those people went to vote in would send up be red flags. Also, when they finally did go through the forms, if a pattern developed, they could alert the DA’s office or the FBI then and ACORN could be charged (the legislature might have to do something about the statute of limitations). Or the County elections department could ask for volunteers, say, lawyers like Heather H, who could put the time where their mouth is, and make some calls checking on registrations.
Anyway, I sent another comment to OffQ, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope that it will be read. This is one of those stories where the Republicans hope the Democrats are not going to stick their neck out, where the Republicans (and Stephen Zappala, apparently) hope that waving the flag will blind us to the hypocrisy of their charges.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Nut's N'at
Brian O’Neill did a piece on ACRON yesterday. He took pains to be “fair and balanced” but I think that took him too far down the path conservatives take. Seven local ACORN temp workers were arrested for voter fraud just recently. O’Neill had actually walked door to door with one of the arrested workers back in 2004, and while he doesn’t say anything personally bad about the man, he does indicate he was fired a couple of years ago for “cutting corners”. In fact, the two main thrusts of O’Neill column are that (a) the conservatives claims that ACORN is trying to steal an election are false and (b) ACORN’s claims of registering tens of thousands of voters here and more than a million nationwide are (in his opinion) false as well. And it is the county election department workers who get stuck with dealing with the problem.
OK, O’Neill may be right that ACORN is not succeeding in registering enough people. But I think he gave inadequate credit to ACORN for it’s own efforts to police itself (at least as reported on the KD/PG program last fall). ACORN apparently acts as a jobs program, especially for people who ordinarily can’t get jobs, during the election cycle. Not only do they hire canvassers who sign people up to vote, they hire people to call the names on those voter cards. If they can’t get a response after three calls, they flag the card. Or if the response they get on the phone is suspicious or clearly not form the name on the card, they flag the card. But since these are voter registration cards, where the person’s signature indicates they swear they are who they say they are and are not already registered, etc etc, and given the history of voter intimidation in this country, ACORN turns in every voter registration card, but flags the ones a reasonable person might say to tear up.
I myself can’t be totally sympathetic with ACORN. They hire people who are out of work before elections, and sometimes these are people they have hired before. That indicates to me that some of the hires are not people temporarily displaced, but rather seem incapable of finding a permanent job (some of them). And ACORN’s system of trying to generate productivity has not found the right balance yet (and may never). And I too sympathize with the County election workers who have to sort out these registration cards. But, again. given the history of minorities being able to actually vote in this country, ACORN is actually performing an important public service for us all. Except, apparently, the those conservatives who want to see the likes of George W Bush in office.
There was also a piece on assessments in yesterday's PG, but that will have to wait for a few days. I'm pretty busy at work.
OK, O’Neill may be right that ACORN is not succeeding in registering enough people. But I think he gave inadequate credit to ACORN for it’s own efforts to police itself (at least as reported on the KD/PG program last fall). ACORN apparently acts as a jobs program, especially for people who ordinarily can’t get jobs, during the election cycle. Not only do they hire canvassers who sign people up to vote, they hire people to call the names on those voter cards. If they can’t get a response after three calls, they flag the card. Or if the response they get on the phone is suspicious or clearly not form the name on the card, they flag the card. But since these are voter registration cards, where the person’s signature indicates they swear they are who they say they are and are not already registered, etc etc, and given the history of voter intimidation in this country, ACORN turns in every voter registration card, but flags the ones a reasonable person might say to tear up.
I myself can’t be totally sympathetic with ACORN. They hire people who are out of work before elections, and sometimes these are people they have hired before. That indicates to me that some of the hires are not people temporarily displaced, but rather seem incapable of finding a permanent job (some of them). And ACORN’s system of trying to generate productivity has not found the right balance yet (and may never). And I too sympathize with the County election workers who have to sort out these registration cards. But, again. given the history of minorities being able to actually vote in this country, ACORN is actually performing an important public service for us all. Except, apparently, the those conservatives who want to see the likes of George W Bush in office.
There was also a piece on assessments in yesterday's PG, but that will have to wait for a few days. I'm pretty busy at work.
Friday, May 08, 2009
Daaah ...dah dah dah ... dah dah dah
When the first Star Trek series was introduced in 1966, in many ways it reflected its time. Which is not to say the 23rd century, rather that specific time of 1966. In some ways it stretched the mores of 1966. I don’t know that everyone was comfortable with this multicultural crew (even though the middle aged heterosexual white guys were ultimately in charge), or comfortable with the first on screen interracial kiss, even if the circumstances included aliens with mind powers causing it.
But in 1966 things were not bad in the United States. Vietnam was escalating, but Tet had not occurred yet. I believe the economy was still in good shape. The Watts riot had occurred the year before, but so had the Voting rights Act, so progress was still being made. What made Star Trek so remarkable, looking back, was that it reflected the thought that government worked. In fact, government was so wise that it’s main law (prime directive) was not to interfere in primitive cultures the government’s employees encountered as they jetted around the universe. Of course, Captain Kirk knew what was best for the noble savages and routinely broke that rule, but we trusted his judgment. Subsequent Trek spin offs have spun these ideas, making them darker and reflecting our post-Watergate, post-Vietnam and even post-Lewinsky era.
The new movie is said to “re-imagine” parts of Star trek’s history (they’re not supposed to meet the Romulans until “Balance of Terror” in the first season), but actual history has already passed Star Trek’s history by (Ricardo Montalban was supposed to be sweeping through South Asia in the 1980’s, instead we got the band Asia and George HW Bush). We’ve come 43 years since Trek first appeared on the screen, a length of time where a person could grow up and become a success. For example, JJ Abrams was born in 1966 (irony?). Maybe Trek has gotten old enough and mature enough for us to appreciate the new while remembering what we like about the old one, and why. After all, by now Star Trek has gotten old enough to move out of it’s parents basement.
But in 1966 things were not bad in the United States. Vietnam was escalating, but Tet had not occurred yet. I believe the economy was still in good shape. The Watts riot had occurred the year before, but so had the Voting rights Act, so progress was still being made. What made Star Trek so remarkable, looking back, was that it reflected the thought that government worked. In fact, government was so wise that it’s main law (prime directive) was not to interfere in primitive cultures the government’s employees encountered as they jetted around the universe. Of course, Captain Kirk knew what was best for the noble savages and routinely broke that rule, but we trusted his judgment. Subsequent Trek spin offs have spun these ideas, making them darker and reflecting our post-Watergate, post-Vietnam and even post-Lewinsky era.
The new movie is said to “re-imagine” parts of Star trek’s history (they’re not supposed to meet the Romulans until “Balance of Terror” in the first season), but actual history has already passed Star Trek’s history by (Ricardo Montalban was supposed to be sweeping through South Asia in the 1980’s, instead we got the band Asia and George HW Bush). We’ve come 43 years since Trek first appeared on the screen, a length of time where a person could grow up and become a success. For example, JJ Abrams was born in 1966 (irony?). Maybe Trek has gotten old enough and mature enough for us to appreciate the new while remembering what we like about the old one, and why. After all, by now Star Trek has gotten old enough to move out of it’s parents basement.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Fetterman's troubles ...
Apparently John Fetterman is going to lose his primary in a few weeks. Not that I know much about it, but it seems the safe way to bet. Fetterman won his first election (which might have been the primary) by one vote. Now, according to the PG, he has antagonized a large part of the Braddock Council and picked up “vocal” critics. There are accusations that he is spending too much time on national television, and out of touch with the community. But I thought I detected an undertone of superiority in the PG’s reporting of the story, although I basically trust the story (as much as I do any newspaper story).
So the story covered Fetterman’s national exposure and his local efforts. It also covered the Council’s seeming dislike of Fetterman, as well as the anger of various individuals. Some of the points strike me as valid but complicated, like Fetterman owing taxes on two properties he bought for individuals in Braddock's youth programs(one of whom was shot and killed, the other moved away). Fetterman says he is trying to sell the properties to pay the taxes, but I would ask whether he was intending to offer these properties without having taxes paid up? The answer is, of course, we don’t get the full story, even in a paragraph devoted to it. But it does look bad for the Mayor to owe taxes on property, even in a complicated situation.
Maybe that is what comes across in the PG story, that at least part of Braddock does not want a complicated Mayor, they want a simple, easy to understand hometown boy. Fetterman’s competitor, a Jayme Cox, is a local business man made good, but he has a criminal record of sorts. Years ago he apparently attacked his wife of the time and took her purse. The charges were later dropped, but the two did get divorced. Cox said he “contested "everything" in the police report.” and says it is a personal matter that has been resolved (the wife apparently said nothing).
The PG is practically dripping with condescension when it finds a local critic, Lemuel Howell. He essentially accuses Fetterman of being a carpet bagger, complaining among other things about murals that Fetterman has encouraged. He compares Braddock to Mayberry, saying “And Mayberry is a little too small for them big ideas”. In the real world, I think you can entertain big ideas, even if you don’t adopt them. Doing things to make Braddock unique, like having a bio fuel shop in town, benefits Braddock and the larger region.
So the story covered Fetterman’s national exposure and his local efforts. It also covered the Council’s seeming dislike of Fetterman, as well as the anger of various individuals. Some of the points strike me as valid but complicated, like Fetterman owing taxes on two properties he bought for individuals in Braddock's youth programs(one of whom was shot and killed, the other moved away). Fetterman says he is trying to sell the properties to pay the taxes, but I would ask whether he was intending to offer these properties without having taxes paid up? The answer is, of course, we don’t get the full story, even in a paragraph devoted to it. But it does look bad for the Mayor to owe taxes on property, even in a complicated situation.
Maybe that is what comes across in the PG story, that at least part of Braddock does not want a complicated Mayor, they want a simple, easy to understand hometown boy. Fetterman’s competitor, a Jayme Cox, is a local business man made good, but he has a criminal record of sorts. Years ago he apparently attacked his wife of the time and took her purse. The charges were later dropped, but the two did get divorced. Cox said he “contested "everything" in the police report.” and says it is a personal matter that has been resolved (the wife apparently said nothing).
The PG is practically dripping with condescension when it finds a local critic, Lemuel Howell. He essentially accuses Fetterman of being a carpet bagger, complaining among other things about murals that Fetterman has encouraged. He compares Braddock to Mayberry, saying “And Mayberry is a little too small for them big ideas”. In the real world, I think you can entertain big ideas, even if you don’t adopt them. Doing things to make Braddock unique, like having a bio fuel shop in town, benefits Braddock and the larger region.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
The thing I feared
I predicted this. Well, at least this is the first step to what I said here. The police want to look like they're doing something. And in turn, gun rights advocates are going to escalate their rhetoric about government being corrupt and oppressive.
Monday, April 27, 2009
City Paper points
I probably am out of ideas at the moment for posts. I think I was stunned by the sudden outburst of Indian (insourced?) summer we have had, due to come to a crashing halt tomorrow.
I haven't yet watched the video Bram put up of a non-televised debate from last Thursday, but I still feel a little urge to comment on Chris Potter's comments on the debate. Potter thinks Ravenstahl has grown in office, as evidenced by his ability to absorb attacks and stay on message. I'll concede that, but I see no reason to think that the Mayor has learned the idea that being Mayor means serving the entire public, and maybe working harder for the poor since they can't buy the help of a politician. Dowd and Robinson are both a bit erratic, but there is no indication that they are on anyone’s radar to be bought. If some CMU hacker gets into the Diebolds (or whatever we have) and either Robinson or Dowd pulls out an upset, then maybe Dowd will be approached by Ted Stevens’ contractor with an offer to finish Dowd’s remodeling in five years instead of the twenty that seems to be Dowd’s schedule. But Potter’s other observation is probably right, no one seems to be paying much attention to this election.
I haven't yet watched the video Bram put up of a non-televised debate from last Thursday, but I still feel a little urge to comment on Chris Potter's comments on the debate. Potter thinks Ravenstahl has grown in office, as evidenced by his ability to absorb attacks and stay on message. I'll concede that, but I see no reason to think that the Mayor has learned the idea that being Mayor means serving the entire public, and maybe working harder for the poor since they can't buy the help of a politician. Dowd and Robinson are both a bit erratic, but there is no indication that they are on anyone’s radar to be bought. If some CMU hacker gets into the Diebolds (or whatever we have) and either Robinson or Dowd pulls out an upset, then maybe Dowd will be approached by Ted Stevens’ contractor with an offer to finish Dowd’s remodeling in five years instead of the twenty that seems to be Dowd’s schedule. But Potter’s other observation is probably right, no one seems to be paying much attention to this election.
Friday, April 24, 2009
It's not fare ...
I noticed this article while looking for movie listings in the PG. Rider-ship is up at the Port Authority by 3.5 percent. It is not at an all time high, since it dropped after the last fare hike and service cuts, but it is at about 96% of the previous high. Nationwide rider-ship is at an all time high, but not here. We cut some driver benefits, giving PAT what it said it wanted for a long term arrangement. This freed up the 22 million from the drink tax (I dunno what happened to the extra the courts said had to go to PAT, I assume it went somewhere), and that freed up some huge amount from the State from tolling I-80 (which still hasn’t happened, but the revenues were borrowed). But apparently the Port Authority is considering another round of fare hikes and possible service cuts. They say State and County funding is flat and inflation is rising, which would be what would force them to cut service and raise fares … again. Inflation being … what, maybe one percent, I guess fares would go up a penny and a half.
So rider-ship is at about 96 percent of its highest, and the Port Authority previously cut routes. So that likely means that … buses are more crowded than they ever have been. And these guys still can’t break even. I wonder what Larry, Curley and Moe are doing right now, if they are available to serve on an Authority Board (already over at the PWSA? Damn!).
So rider-ship is at about 96 percent of its highest, and the Port Authority previously cut routes. So that likely means that … buses are more crowded than they ever have been. And these guys still can’t break even. I wonder what Larry, Curley and Moe are doing right now, if they are available to serve on an Authority Board (already over at the PWSA? Damn!).
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Are we listening?
Bob Mayo does a good job of covering how he tried to follow up at the end of Monday's debate, and did follow up with Mayor Ravenstahl on Tuesday, about his making his schedule public. I gather there was a press conference on Tuesday and when Mr. Mayo asked his question again (about the Mayor making his “full” schedule public, as he apparently used to do), the Mayor quipped “I did a pretty good job of not answering it, didn’t I” and got some laughter.
OK, that’s actually not funny. A televised debate is when reporters ask questions on our behalf, and the candidates are supposed to answer them. Not answering is basically telling Pittsburghers “I have no respect for you, you have no right to know”.
Now, the Mayor did sort of say he would make his schedule public, tentatively (and defintely said he would participate in a third debate), but he took pains to say he might keep some things private. He wouldn’t reveal his campaign strategy, for example. Um, how does a schedule reveal a campaign strategy? On the other hand, schedules might say which donors the Mayor is meeting with. If the Mayor wants to keep certain donations or arrangements off the books, it would be better not to have those meetings or attendees listed somewhere publicly.
By the way, I think I might have (inadvertently) harassed Bob Mayo on his blog, if so, I apologize and feel bad. I referenced a question he asked the Mayor in a debate two years ago, and I whined about him not following up when the Mayor didn’t answer. Of course my memory could be faulty, or I could just be peeved my candidate didn’t win, but I should point out Mayo did ask the question in the first place. Mayo frequently is the person with the toughest questions, one of Pittsburgh’s best journalists, and by the way, then goes out of his way to provide the blogosphere with his thoughts, something only a couple of local journalists do.
But all that is not what this post is about (argh, he’s being long winded as always!). The Mayor volunteered in his closing statement in Monday’s debate that he wasn’t ready to be Mayor when he took over in September of 2006.
Really?
‘cause that’s what a lot of his critics were saying then. Were you ready to be City Council President in December of 2005? You could have declined that honor, and you could have declined the office of Mayor, for that matter. But you accepted both, because you felt you could handle them, I guess. Now you tell us you think your judgment was faulty then.
Really?
Can you give us some indications why you think you judgment was faulty then? Something about Dennis Regan, maybe? Did you project a deficit in your budget, and now realize that the truth is over rated? Something?
And how, exactly, can we trust you now? You now admit your judgment was wrong then, but at the time you said we could trust you, right? Should we trust you now when you say you are equipped to run the City? Why? You can’t be running on your record, can you? After all, you said you weren’t ready in ’06. By the by, when would you say you transformed from naïve youth making mistakes to experienced Mayor? Can you pinpoint a date?
This is a Mayor who wants to laugh about not answering a question in a televised debate. And I should point out that he was only going to participate in two debates (despite all his rhetoric), so each debate counted even more. And he wanted to waste the viewers time by not answering questions.
And he told us all this himself, its not anybody putting words in his mouth.
OK, that’s actually not funny. A televised debate is when reporters ask questions on our behalf, and the candidates are supposed to answer them. Not answering is basically telling Pittsburghers “I have no respect for you, you have no right to know”.
Now, the Mayor did sort of say he would make his schedule public, tentatively (and defintely said he would participate in a third debate), but he took pains to say he might keep some things private. He wouldn’t reveal his campaign strategy, for example. Um, how does a schedule reveal a campaign strategy? On the other hand, schedules might say which donors the Mayor is meeting with. If the Mayor wants to keep certain donations or arrangements off the books, it would be better not to have those meetings or attendees listed somewhere publicly.
By the way, I think I might have (inadvertently) harassed Bob Mayo on his blog, if so, I apologize and feel bad. I referenced a question he asked the Mayor in a debate two years ago, and I whined about him not following up when the Mayor didn’t answer. Of course my memory could be faulty, or I could just be peeved my candidate didn’t win, but I should point out Mayo did ask the question in the first place. Mayo frequently is the person with the toughest questions, one of Pittsburgh’s best journalists, and by the way, then goes out of his way to provide the blogosphere with his thoughts, something only a couple of local journalists do.
But all that is not what this post is about (argh, he’s being long winded as always!). The Mayor volunteered in his closing statement in Monday’s debate that he wasn’t ready to be Mayor when he took over in September of 2006.
Really?
‘cause that’s what a lot of his critics were saying then. Were you ready to be City Council President in December of 2005? You could have declined that honor, and you could have declined the office of Mayor, for that matter. But you accepted both, because you felt you could handle them, I guess. Now you tell us you think your judgment was faulty then.
Really?
Can you give us some indications why you think you judgment was faulty then? Something about Dennis Regan, maybe? Did you project a deficit in your budget, and now realize that the truth is over rated? Something?
And how, exactly, can we trust you now? You now admit your judgment was wrong then, but at the time you said we could trust you, right? Should we trust you now when you say you are equipped to run the City? Why? You can’t be running on your record, can you? After all, you said you weren’t ready in ’06. By the by, when would you say you transformed from naïve youth making mistakes to experienced Mayor? Can you pinpoint a date?
This is a Mayor who wants to laugh about not answering a question in a televised debate. And I should point out that he was only going to participate in two debates (despite all his rhetoric), so each debate counted even more. And he wanted to waste the viewers time by not answering questions.
And he told us all this himself, its not anybody putting words in his mouth.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Well, maybe a winner, at least on the internet
Just to point out that WTAE is conducting a poll on its web page about last night's debate. Pat Dowd is winning as of 6:00 AM, 50% to 39% for Ravenstahl and 8% for Carmen Robinson. Of course, this is a voluntary poll, and computer users are not likely a representational cross section of the electorate. In fact, I suspect this is the result Mark DeSantis would have gotten after any one of his debates with Ravenstahl.
But hey, a plurality is a plurality.
But hey, a plurality is a plurality.
Monday, April 20, 2009
no winners tonight, particularly not us...
My thoughts about tonight's debate:
Ravenstahl put in an entirely uninspiring performance. He makes me think of just exactly what he is, a kid with a second rate education trying to sound impressive even though he is not fully sure what is going on. That said, he made no major gaffes and he had a surprising command of some facts. He made quite a few minor gaffes in my opinion, but you would need a seasoned, alert debater to catch those and turn them against Ravenstahl, and Pat Dowd was not that debater.
The point where Dowd did catch the Mayor flip flopping, on campaign reform, the Mayor simply toughed it out. Dowd was correct, the Mayor did a one eighty on camera, completely reversing what he had said previously. And by pretending he had not said it before, it did not seem like the Mayor was reversing himself. He flat got away with it.
There was a point where that situation was reversed. The Mayor tried to catch Dowd up on his support for the gun control bill that Dowd had spoken against, and then voted for. Dowd’s explanation that he was swayed by what police officers said was reasonable and somewhat convincing, but when the Mayor said “if you thought it was a bad bill, why not vote against it?”, I think the Mayor scored a little bit. Anyone undecided about whom to vote for did not get much help tonight.
Not to sound snooty, but I was not impressed with Carmen Robinson. She may draw off some African American voters, who probably were going to vote for Ravenstahl (no one seems to be able to explain why, at least not satisfactorily). If Dowd had made an effort to get the African American vote (even DeSantis showed up on Perrysville Ave) … but I guess Robinson being in the race might mean he loses by a few less percentage points.
There is at least one more televised debate. I hope Dowd throws caution to the wind, and goes for the jugular. He should start the debate pointing out that Ravenstahl is the beneficiary of being Mayor at the end of the first five year Act 47 plan, which destroyed Tom Murphy’s career, by the way. Dowd should hammer on what happens next, when we go into a new five year plan. How many police will we have to lay off this time? Will the State step in and appoint an executive to run the City because Ravenstahl obviously can’t? These are the things I would say if I were Pat Dowd. Maybe they aren’t totally fair, but since when did fair matter in politics? The trick is to go for our gut.
Ravenstahl put in an entirely uninspiring performance. He makes me think of just exactly what he is, a kid with a second rate education trying to sound impressive even though he is not fully sure what is going on. That said, he made no major gaffes and he had a surprising command of some facts. He made quite a few minor gaffes in my opinion, but you would need a seasoned, alert debater to catch those and turn them against Ravenstahl, and Pat Dowd was not that debater.
The point where Dowd did catch the Mayor flip flopping, on campaign reform, the Mayor simply toughed it out. Dowd was correct, the Mayor did a one eighty on camera, completely reversing what he had said previously. And by pretending he had not said it before, it did not seem like the Mayor was reversing himself. He flat got away with it.
There was a point where that situation was reversed. The Mayor tried to catch Dowd up on his support for the gun control bill that Dowd had spoken against, and then voted for. Dowd’s explanation that he was swayed by what police officers said was reasonable and somewhat convincing, but when the Mayor said “if you thought it was a bad bill, why not vote against it?”, I think the Mayor scored a little bit. Anyone undecided about whom to vote for did not get much help tonight.
Not to sound snooty, but I was not impressed with Carmen Robinson. She may draw off some African American voters, who probably were going to vote for Ravenstahl (no one seems to be able to explain why, at least not satisfactorily). If Dowd had made an effort to get the African American vote (even DeSantis showed up on Perrysville Ave) … but I guess Robinson being in the race might mean he loses by a few less percentage points.
There is at least one more televised debate. I hope Dowd throws caution to the wind, and goes for the jugular. He should start the debate pointing out that Ravenstahl is the beneficiary of being Mayor at the end of the first five year Act 47 plan, which destroyed Tom Murphy’s career, by the way. Dowd should hammer on what happens next, when we go into a new five year plan. How many police will we have to lay off this time? Will the State step in and appoint an executive to run the City because Ravenstahl obviously can’t? These are the things I would say if I were Pat Dowd. Maybe they aren’t totally fair, but since when did fair matter in politics? The trick is to go for our gut.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Guns
So I did read the Tushnet book “Out of Range”, all in one sitting on Saturday. I also watched David Simon, creator of “The Wire” and “Homicide, Life on the Streets” interviewed by Bill Moyers on Moyer’s “Journal” Friday evening. Doing both in a short space of time affected me considerably.
Tushnet is a rare bird indeed, a constitutional scholar who claims never to have considered the second amendment (and I believe him), and so come to the subject as the closest thing to an expert without an agenda., based on his analysis of available material, is that there is support for both sides of the argument in the history of the second amendment (gun rights versus gun control). Let me say right upfront that Tushnet’s position is that there is no empirical support the gun control works, particularly because there are not good empirical data sets. Tushnet spends a fair amount of time on this notion, and makes a somewhat confusing but ultimately somewhat persuasive case that regardless of whether you are trying to show that more enforcement of existing laws or more gun control is effective, that it is impossible to show why a crime drop occurs. Consider the argument advanced in Freakonomics, briefly mentioned by Tushnet, that the drop in crime that we saw in the 1990’s could be traced directly to women being able to have abortions legally from the mid-seventies on, and thus a generation of what might have been neglected children were not born. That would surely color the statistics for any effectiveness of the assault weapon ban, as well as any effectiveness of a program in Richmond that combined federal and state prosecutors to get criminals the harshest sentences possible for gun crimes. Tushnet did not look at the experience of other countries with gun control, but ultimately, to be realistic, most Americans who own guns would not likely give them up because the Japanese and the British ban guns and have lower crime then we do. Realistically that suggestion will be met with the refrain that if law abiding citizens give up guns, only criminals will have them (if nothing else, if guns were banned and citizens were ordered to give them up, then indeed the only people with guns would be criminals … sorry, couldn’t resist).
By the way, Tushnet mentions the “right of resistance” early in his book. He spends some time talking about militias, whether the second amendment is only supposed to apply to them and what their relationship should be to the government. Interestingly this issue was brought up in a discussion on another blog, although in my opinion the circle was not closed in the sense of attributing to Poplawski the “right of resistance”. Interstingly, just before (Shays) and just after (whiskey) the writing of the second amendment, there were two tax rebellions by poorer farmers aginst the government. Shays’ was ended by State authorized but private funded troops, the whiskey rebellion was ended by troops led first by Washington and later Hamilton. Even though both rebellions could be said to be the efforts of a local government to oppose a government that had become corrupt and oppressive, I have seen no evidence that the country as a whole either agreed or even sympathized. Which makes me think that one of the cornerstone arguments for at least not restricting the second amendment, not banning assault or military style rifles, is not an argument supported by public opinion when military weapons are used to resist the government. Something for tea party participants to think about.
Tushnet does examine the issue of the right of resistance in some detail. He acknowledges that even while some commercially available rifles are fairly fearsome, modern armies have tanks, aircraft and artillery which when used are quite a bit more effective. Tushnet does then briefly mention the concept of guerilla war. Most guerilla wars are fairly brutal affairs, but in keeping with notion of a militia. Of course, there is conundrum right there. Are militias for the defense of the United States per se, or for the defense of the concept of the United States against a now corrupt and oppressive national government. Personally I think that the writers of the second amendment were is some sense splitting the difference. As I mentioned, they appeared to have little sympathy when people were protesting taxes they had created. Yet the second amendment sort of justified what America had done in resisting England. It will be interesting to see if the second amendment plays any role in Poplawski’s trial.
But what is the context in which we should be discussing gun control anyway? When we talk about three dead policemen we are absolutely talking about a huge tragedy. But most of the victims and perpetrators of gun violence here in Pittsburgh are African American. Are we concerned about them? This was the subject David Simon talked about on Friday on Bill Moyer’s Journal. Simon’s thought is that we are not concerned about inner city poor neighborhoods. They have high unemployment and high underemployment, Simon calls them excess citizens, people we don’t need, we pretend to serve as citizens, but we really don’t. And they realize that, they realize there is a difference between urban schools and suburban schools. There’s a difference between how police approach a face of color and a white face.
The poor know the drug war has gone on for how long, thirty or more years? We said “Just Say No” in the 1980’s. as if that is likely to help a black teenager get a better education or get a job. I myself have just finished seeing the economic situation up close but in little increments. Helping people do their taxes is something I like to do, and I am happy to be paid something for doing it. But I am sure I am not part of any kind of long term solution, I am just helping some people get all the money the government is wiling to give them (within the rules), or at least owe as little as possible. I am not encouraged by what I see. Based on the incomes and situations I see, poor people do not have the credit to buy a house, except sometimes in Lincoln Lemington or the Hill or East Liberty. They do not save for retirement. I remember one gentleman in particular, still working at eighty, I believe just to make ends meet. These are difficult lives, with a lot of stories of setbacks, or being dragged down by disabilities (or family members with disabilities), or bad choices that they make worse (such as refusing to pay child support).
Within the context of crime, “The Wire” is all about the (too few) police who do try to solve crimes and/or bring order to the streets. Meanwhile, the higher-ups in the police department try to create statistics that show something is being done. The inner city is where there are AK-47’s and high magazine capacity pistols that are used, mostly by African Americans against other African Americans. And there is little hope of pulling those guns out of the neighborhoods, because there aren’t enough police and anyway doing so might imply it was ok to take away everyone’s guns.
But we shouldn't make a mistake of who the other, forgotten victims are.
Tushnet is a rare bird indeed, a constitutional scholar who claims never to have considered the second amendment (and I believe him), and so come to the subject as the closest thing to an expert without an agenda., based on his analysis of available material, is that there is support for both sides of the argument in the history of the second amendment (gun rights versus gun control). Let me say right upfront that Tushnet’s position is that there is no empirical support the gun control works, particularly because there are not good empirical data sets. Tushnet spends a fair amount of time on this notion, and makes a somewhat confusing but ultimately somewhat persuasive case that regardless of whether you are trying to show that more enforcement of existing laws or more gun control is effective, that it is impossible to show why a crime drop occurs. Consider the argument advanced in Freakonomics, briefly mentioned by Tushnet, that the drop in crime that we saw in the 1990’s could be traced directly to women being able to have abortions legally from the mid-seventies on, and thus a generation of what might have been neglected children were not born. That would surely color the statistics for any effectiveness of the assault weapon ban, as well as any effectiveness of a program in Richmond that combined federal and state prosecutors to get criminals the harshest sentences possible for gun crimes. Tushnet did not look at the experience of other countries with gun control, but ultimately, to be realistic, most Americans who own guns would not likely give them up because the Japanese and the British ban guns and have lower crime then we do. Realistically that suggestion will be met with the refrain that if law abiding citizens give up guns, only criminals will have them (if nothing else, if guns were banned and citizens were ordered to give them up, then indeed the only people with guns would be criminals … sorry, couldn’t resist).
By the way, Tushnet mentions the “right of resistance” early in his book. He spends some time talking about militias, whether the second amendment is only supposed to apply to them and what their relationship should be to the government. Interestingly this issue was brought up in a discussion on another blog, although in my opinion the circle was not closed in the sense of attributing to Poplawski the “right of resistance”. Interstingly, just before (Shays) and just after (whiskey) the writing of the second amendment, there were two tax rebellions by poorer farmers aginst the government. Shays’ was ended by State authorized but private funded troops, the whiskey rebellion was ended by troops led first by Washington and later Hamilton. Even though both rebellions could be said to be the efforts of a local government to oppose a government that had become corrupt and oppressive, I have seen no evidence that the country as a whole either agreed or even sympathized. Which makes me think that one of the cornerstone arguments for at least not restricting the second amendment, not banning assault or military style rifles, is not an argument supported by public opinion when military weapons are used to resist the government. Something for tea party participants to think about.
Tushnet does examine the issue of the right of resistance in some detail. He acknowledges that even while some commercially available rifles are fairly fearsome, modern armies have tanks, aircraft and artillery which when used are quite a bit more effective. Tushnet does then briefly mention the concept of guerilla war. Most guerilla wars are fairly brutal affairs, but in keeping with notion of a militia. Of course, there is conundrum right there. Are militias for the defense of the United States per se, or for the defense of the concept of the United States against a now corrupt and oppressive national government. Personally I think that the writers of the second amendment were is some sense splitting the difference. As I mentioned, they appeared to have little sympathy when people were protesting taxes they had created. Yet the second amendment sort of justified what America had done in resisting England. It will be interesting to see if the second amendment plays any role in Poplawski’s trial.
But what is the context in which we should be discussing gun control anyway? When we talk about three dead policemen we are absolutely talking about a huge tragedy. But most of the victims and perpetrators of gun violence here in Pittsburgh are African American. Are we concerned about them? This was the subject David Simon talked about on Friday on Bill Moyer’s Journal. Simon’s thought is that we are not concerned about inner city poor neighborhoods. They have high unemployment and high underemployment, Simon calls them excess citizens, people we don’t need, we pretend to serve as citizens, but we really don’t. And they realize that, they realize there is a difference between urban schools and suburban schools. There’s a difference between how police approach a face of color and a white face.
The poor know the drug war has gone on for how long, thirty or more years? We said “Just Say No” in the 1980’s. as if that is likely to help a black teenager get a better education or get a job. I myself have just finished seeing the economic situation up close but in little increments. Helping people do their taxes is something I like to do, and I am happy to be paid something for doing it. But I am sure I am not part of any kind of long term solution, I am just helping some people get all the money the government is wiling to give them (within the rules), or at least owe as little as possible. I am not encouraged by what I see. Based on the incomes and situations I see, poor people do not have the credit to buy a house, except sometimes in Lincoln Lemington or the Hill or East Liberty. They do not save for retirement. I remember one gentleman in particular, still working at eighty, I believe just to make ends meet. These are difficult lives, with a lot of stories of setbacks, or being dragged down by disabilities (or family members with disabilities), or bad choices that they make worse (such as refusing to pay child support).
Within the context of crime, “The Wire” is all about the (too few) police who do try to solve crimes and/or bring order to the streets. Meanwhile, the higher-ups in the police department try to create statistics that show something is being done. The inner city is where there are AK-47’s and high magazine capacity pistols that are used, mostly by African Americans against other African Americans. And there is little hope of pulling those guns out of the neighborhoods, because there aren’t enough police and anyway doing so might imply it was ok to take away everyone’s guns.
But we shouldn't make a mistake of who the other, forgotten victims are.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Less room for debate
So how to address this? KDKA postpones a Mayoral debate, on it’s own (apparently) over the logistics of running a debate when they have had so much coverage of the shooting now over a week ago, and the events that followed. KDKA also apparently questioned the appropriateness of having a debate so soon after the shooting.
Strikes me as lousy reasoning, although if they say it’s so you kind of have no choice but to believe them. But what is especially annoying is that the Mayor is using that as an excuse to get out of one of the three debates. No time for a rescheduled debate, according to the Mayor’s office. Meanwhile, in responding to Pat Dowd’s complaint about the Mayor’s office cancelling his participation in the taped debate, the Mayor states he was the first to propose debates and to offer a schedule. That makes this another ironic situation.
Now, I suspect it violates some kind of campaign laws, but doesn’t the City have it’s own video cameras, facilities for editing and it’s own cable channel. So the debates could be aired, with questions posed to all three candidates from whomever, the media, the general public or bloggers, it hardly matters.
Of course my suggestion won’t be acted upon.
Strikes me as lousy reasoning, although if they say it’s so you kind of have no choice but to believe them. But what is especially annoying is that the Mayor is using that as an excuse to get out of one of the three debates. No time for a rescheduled debate, according to the Mayor’s office. Meanwhile, in responding to Pat Dowd’s complaint about the Mayor’s office cancelling his participation in the taped debate, the Mayor states he was the first to propose debates and to offer a schedule. That makes this another ironic situation.
Now, I suspect it violates some kind of campaign laws, but doesn’t the City have it’s own video cameras, facilities for editing and it’s own cable channel. So the debates could be aired, with questions posed to all three candidates from whomever, the media, the general public or bloggers, it hardly matters.
Of course my suggestion won’t be acted upon.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
A bit more gun (out of) control
I had a lengthy "discussion" over at Slag Heap on the potential for gun control with one of those "well informed" individuals who support the Second Amendment. I suggested that this person (mjfletcher, unless my worsening eyes deceive me) that they had a agenda to their comments, and that (I thought) they sounded (vaguely) threatening. He/She responded that (s)he was giving me simple facts, if I felt threatened by those facts that was my problem. Among the simple facts mj recounted were that the all the founding fathers knew all governments become corrupt and oppressive and that’s why the Second Amendment was put in the constitution. It is our patriotic duty to resist an oppressive government. There was also stuff at first about how gun control doesn’t work and legislators know that, but they (a) want to make ordinary know-nothing citizens feel good, and (b) want to consolidate their hold on the patriotic citizens who might resist the corrupt and oppressive ways of the legislature by taking away the guns of ordinary law abiding citizens. There were lines about how we let felons out of jail too soon, and when I countered with a statistic that we have the most persons in jail percentage wise, mj suggested we put people in jail for parking tickets or failure to pay child support, but still let the gun toting felons go. Actually mj could have said, had mj chose to, something about how we jail people mostly for drugs, but perhaps mj thinks that is justified; jail is where the drug users and petty distributors belong.
mj also said some technical things about guns themselves, he said that gun control doesn’t work, that reducing the capacity of magazines (my suggestion) can be easily gotten around. Then he asked why no one is paying attention to the nuttiness of Poplawski, how Poplawski was thrown out of the Marine Corps, how Poplawski had protection from abuse orders, how Poplawski wrote nutty things about an international Jewish conspiracy, and how the government (Obama) wanted to take away his guns. Of course, mj only knows these things because the media was paying attention to it, but whatever. My response (yes, I didn’t need to give one, but I did) was to say “irony”, and also God help us all. To me, one person with pseudo conspiracy theories was complaining about another person with conspiracy theories.
I don’t thing that there is going to be a serious call for gun control in Congress. Obama has too much on his plate; he can’t make new enemies right now. And by the way, I do agree that gun control up till now really hasn’t worked. Even if there is a call for some new but limited measure, it would not involve any kind of reduction of the guns or high capacity magazines that are out now (by one estimate I read, 200 million). But what might happen is the police may take matters into their own hands. They may start wearing helmets, a heavier grade of body armor and they may come to the door (when someone calls the police because you are watching TV too loud) carrying M-16’s, the same guns carried by the army and SWAT team members. When they stop you for running a red light, they may be pointing M-16’s at you until after they make you get out of the car and search you and your car for weapons. In short, the police may act as if every person they come into contact with is a patriotic, law abiding citizen who feels it is his or her patriotic duty to resist the corrupt and oppressive police with an AK-47 when the police seem to want to take guns away (by stopping people for traffic violations or responding to domestic disputes). Serves us right for being supporters of the Second Amendment.
mj also said some technical things about guns themselves, he said that gun control doesn’t work, that reducing the capacity of magazines (my suggestion) can be easily gotten around. Then he asked why no one is paying attention to the nuttiness of Poplawski, how Poplawski was thrown out of the Marine Corps, how Poplawski had protection from abuse orders, how Poplawski wrote nutty things about an international Jewish conspiracy, and how the government (Obama) wanted to take away his guns. Of course, mj only knows these things because the media was paying attention to it, but whatever. My response (yes, I didn’t need to give one, but I did) was to say “irony”, and also God help us all. To me, one person with pseudo conspiracy theories was complaining about another person with conspiracy theories.
I don’t thing that there is going to be a serious call for gun control in Congress. Obama has too much on his plate; he can’t make new enemies right now. And by the way, I do agree that gun control up till now really hasn’t worked. Even if there is a call for some new but limited measure, it would not involve any kind of reduction of the guns or high capacity magazines that are out now (by one estimate I read, 200 million). But what might happen is the police may take matters into their own hands. They may start wearing helmets, a heavier grade of body armor and they may come to the door (when someone calls the police because you are watching TV too loud) carrying M-16’s, the same guns carried by the army and SWAT team members. When they stop you for running a red light, they may be pointing M-16’s at you until after they make you get out of the car and search you and your car for weapons. In short, the police may act as if every person they come into contact with is a patriotic, law abiding citizen who feels it is his or her patriotic duty to resist the corrupt and oppressive police with an AK-47 when the police seem to want to take guns away (by stopping people for traffic violations or responding to domestic disputes). Serves us right for being supporters of the Second Amendment.
Are you getting Smart with me?
I really think Barrack Obama is trying to be a “smart” President. It may be the way he approaches the world, and, given the law of unintended consequences, it may not work, but it is interesting to watch. A couple of examples:
If you asked Americans on September 12th, 2001, what should the government do now, the response would have surely been to get Osama Bin Laden by any means possible. It would have been ok to strike a deal with the Taliban, or fine to invade Afghanistan and get him that way. "Just get him" was the operative theme.
A few Americans might have mentioned Saddam Hussein in passing. But I think no one would have thought Saddam was a primary threat.
So we went after Osama bin Laden, and spectacularly failed to get him. And a year and a half later we went after Saddam Hussein, not having got Osama bin Laden. We invaded Iraq because the Bush administration made the case that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction would soon be in the hands of terrorists, or Iraqi intelligence operatives pretending to be terrorists, and America would suffer a more devastating attack. Later we would be told that a democratic Iraq would be a catalyst for democracy throughout the Middle East (including the Palestinian territories, where they clearly don’t understand democracy, having elected the wrong people).
So Obama wants to focus back on Afghanistan. Although it has not been mentioned, it appears Obama might be willing to accept a dictator or at least a much less democratic Iraq than what the Bush administration seemed to have in mind (to they extent they had a plan at all). Since it seems Iraq is evolving in that direction anyway, what I am really saying is that the Obama administration appears ready to accept reality in Iraq. But in Afghanistan, there is still room to expand democracy a bit, and more importantly maybe we can yet get Osama Bin Laden. That would be a popular, and therefore smart thing to do.
Meanwhile, on the domestic side, if you ask people what they would like the economy to be like, if you asked them to fantasize and think of the time they were most happy (economically speaking), you would probably get a bunch of hunh’s and wishing doesn’t make it so (I am assuming Americans are an unimaginative bunch, by and large). I suspect if they got the question, a slim majority would say they wished it was 2006 all over again, with growing home values and growing 401k’s. I suspect Obama realizes this, and realize he needs to make the stock market “happy” again, to make a majority of voters happy. What I mean is that Obama realizes he needs to have the widely recognized symbol and barometer of how the American economy is doing start going up again. Then a given subset of Americans will automatically give him some credit for being responsible for America having a good economy (like many of us blame Bush for the opposite).
But how do you make the stock market happy? Well, you start by not firing any of their CEO’s. You continue by continuing to give investment companies and banks (or bank holding corporations) lots of taxpayer money.
The problem with that is that some ordinary Americans blame the investment companies and banks (or bank holding companies) for our current financial mess. So there is a tension between make/keep the financial market happy and satisfying ordinary taxpayers desire to see someone punished for our financial mess. The solution? Fire an executive in a different industry. To use a basket ball term, throw an elbow. In this case, a symbolic elbow at Rick Wagoner of GM. I think the subtle message to the financial industry is “look, I am trying to keep you happy, but see what I am capable of; now how about that re-regulation?” Will that work, and will Americans be satisfied with Rick Wagoner as a sacrificial lamb? Probably not, but it is early days yet, and there are other heads that can go on the chopping block if the financial industry complains or resists re- and new regulations (too bad John Thain is already gone, although maybe he could be prosecuted at some point).
So Obama is trying to do the smart thing in foreign and domestic policy. Which is probably confusing to a lot of people: pundits, Washington insiders, ordinary voters, etc. Maybe we will get used to it or maybe the midterms will turn Congress back over to the Republicans.
If you asked Americans on September 12th, 2001, what should the government do now, the response would have surely been to get Osama Bin Laden by any means possible. It would have been ok to strike a deal with the Taliban, or fine to invade Afghanistan and get him that way. "Just get him" was the operative theme.
A few Americans might have mentioned Saddam Hussein in passing. But I think no one would have thought Saddam was a primary threat.
So we went after Osama bin Laden, and spectacularly failed to get him. And a year and a half later we went after Saddam Hussein, not having got Osama bin Laden. We invaded Iraq because the Bush administration made the case that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction would soon be in the hands of terrorists, or Iraqi intelligence operatives pretending to be terrorists, and America would suffer a more devastating attack. Later we would be told that a democratic Iraq would be a catalyst for democracy throughout the Middle East (including the Palestinian territories, where they clearly don’t understand democracy, having elected the wrong people).
So Obama wants to focus back on Afghanistan. Although it has not been mentioned, it appears Obama might be willing to accept a dictator or at least a much less democratic Iraq than what the Bush administration seemed to have in mind (to they extent they had a plan at all). Since it seems Iraq is evolving in that direction anyway, what I am really saying is that the Obama administration appears ready to accept reality in Iraq. But in Afghanistan, there is still room to expand democracy a bit, and more importantly maybe we can yet get Osama Bin Laden. That would be a popular, and therefore smart thing to do.
Meanwhile, on the domestic side, if you ask people what they would like the economy to be like, if you asked them to fantasize and think of the time they were most happy (economically speaking), you would probably get a bunch of hunh’s and wishing doesn’t make it so (I am assuming Americans are an unimaginative bunch, by and large). I suspect if they got the question, a slim majority would say they wished it was 2006 all over again, with growing home values and growing 401k’s. I suspect Obama realizes this, and realize he needs to make the stock market “happy” again, to make a majority of voters happy. What I mean is that Obama realizes he needs to have the widely recognized symbol and barometer of how the American economy is doing start going up again. Then a given subset of Americans will automatically give him some credit for being responsible for America having a good economy (like many of us blame Bush for the opposite).
But how do you make the stock market happy? Well, you start by not firing any of their CEO’s. You continue by continuing to give investment companies and banks (or bank holding corporations) lots of taxpayer money.
The problem with that is that some ordinary Americans blame the investment companies and banks (or bank holding companies) for our current financial mess. So there is a tension between make/keep the financial market happy and satisfying ordinary taxpayers desire to see someone punished for our financial mess. The solution? Fire an executive in a different industry. To use a basket ball term, throw an elbow. In this case, a symbolic elbow at Rick Wagoner of GM. I think the subtle message to the financial industry is “look, I am trying to keep you happy, but see what I am capable of; now how about that re-regulation?” Will that work, and will Americans be satisfied with Rick Wagoner as a sacrificial lamb? Probably not, but it is early days yet, and there are other heads that can go on the chopping block if the financial industry complains or resists re- and new regulations (too bad John Thain is already gone, although maybe he could be prosecuted at some point).
So Obama is trying to do the smart thing in foreign and domestic policy. Which is probably confusing to a lot of people: pundits, Washington insiders, ordinary voters, etc. Maybe we will get used to it or maybe the midterms will turn Congress back over to the Republicans.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Gone Baby Gone
Via Bram's Comet, we find out from Jeremy Boren that tonight's debate is at least postponed, possibly cancelled. Too bad, in a way, it would not be bad to see the candidates responded to stressful news. No word on when the debate might be rescheduled to.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
A true tragedy ...
Since it happened roughly six blocks from my house, I feel more compelled to say something about the killing of the three police officers than I might otherwise. Except there really isn’t much to say beyond what has been said. It was truly a senseless killing. One co-worker (I did my second job yesterday) remarked that Poplawski’s life is over, while someone else suggested he would get the death penalty. I think if he doesn’t get the death penalty, it will be life in prison and I would hope he would never be paroled.
A couple of thoughts do occur to me that I would like to remark on. First, Poplawski’s back story reads like the poster child for tougher gun control. Dropping out of high school, joining the marines and then being dishonorably discharged during basic training (apparently to chase a girl), having protection from abuse orders in his past history; this is a person that should never have been allowed to buy an AK-47 or a concealable handgun. I remember last summer, during the debate about the election, how gun enthusiasts commenting on the Burgh Report were claiming that gun control makes countries less safe, and linking to web sites that used statistics purporting to prove that. Now, the shooting yesterday is just one anecdote, but, when I think about it, the gun crimes I hear about are a series of anecdotes where guns are almost never used by innocent parties to successfully defend themselves against criminals. Instead it is drug gang violence, or some drunk carrying a pistol into a bar, pulling it out over some random argument and shooting several people, or just recently three senseless bouts of shootings including the Poplawski affair.
At the very least, I hope and also suspect Congressional Democrats will bring back the assault weapon ban. I believe they will get it passed too; there is talk about using an obscure rule/tactic in the Senate that I have not looked into yet (but I believe is called reconciliation) that nullifies the need for the 60 vote super majority. I can see that being used here because the assault weapon ban is actually popular among Americans. Not that I believe one party rule is good for us, and I strongly suspect the Democrats will soon collapse under their own weight, and find a way to fritter away their majority. Frankly, House Democrats seem determined to do just that as soon as possible.
Anyway, back to the topic of this post; the last thought that occurred to me was that this issue might show up in the Mayoral race. Obviously the Mayor would have nothing bad to say about the police department. It’s hard for me to think of any local ordinances that could have even the remotest chance of preventing or minimizing an incident like this in the future. Since I believe that’s true, I hope Pat Dowd does nothing more than join the Mayor in offering condolences to the families of the slain police officers. The debate tomorrow will undoubtedly be colored by this tragedy.
A couple of thoughts do occur to me that I would like to remark on. First, Poplawski’s back story reads like the poster child for tougher gun control. Dropping out of high school, joining the marines and then being dishonorably discharged during basic training (apparently to chase a girl), having protection from abuse orders in his past history; this is a person that should never have been allowed to buy an AK-47 or a concealable handgun. I remember last summer, during the debate about the election, how gun enthusiasts commenting on the Burgh Report were claiming that gun control makes countries less safe, and linking to web sites that used statistics purporting to prove that. Now, the shooting yesterday is just one anecdote, but, when I think about it, the gun crimes I hear about are a series of anecdotes where guns are almost never used by innocent parties to successfully defend themselves against criminals. Instead it is drug gang violence, or some drunk carrying a pistol into a bar, pulling it out over some random argument and shooting several people, or just recently three senseless bouts of shootings including the Poplawski affair.
At the very least, I hope and also suspect Congressional Democrats will bring back the assault weapon ban. I believe they will get it passed too; there is talk about using an obscure rule/tactic in the Senate that I have not looked into yet (but I believe is called reconciliation) that nullifies the need for the 60 vote super majority. I can see that being used here because the assault weapon ban is actually popular among Americans. Not that I believe one party rule is good for us, and I strongly suspect the Democrats will soon collapse under their own weight, and find a way to fritter away their majority. Frankly, House Democrats seem determined to do just that as soon as possible.
Anyway, back to the topic of this post; the last thought that occurred to me was that this issue might show up in the Mayoral race. Obviously the Mayor would have nothing bad to say about the police department. It’s hard for me to think of any local ordinances that could have even the remotest chance of preventing or minimizing an incident like this in the future. Since I believe that’s true, I hope Pat Dowd does nothing more than join the Mayor in offering condolences to the families of the slain police officers. The debate tomorrow will undoubtedly be colored by this tragedy.
Friday, April 03, 2009
How debatable ...
The Post Gazette has the news, currently in their breaking news section online. There will be three debates between the Mayoral (Democratic) candidates, including a live one Monday at 7:00pm on PCNC. The other two will also be at 7:00pm, taped on KDKA on April 15 and again live on April 20 on WTAE.
As we may all remember, Obama was behind right before the debates. By being cool and very reasonable sounding, and because McCain was cranky and less reasonable sounding, Obama pulled ahead and never looked back. For Dowd to score a similar result, the Mayor would have to be less on his game than he was with DeSantis. For that to happen, Dowd will have to challenge the Mayor the first time he doesn’t answer a question. Also Dowd will have to be somewhat dismissive when the Mayor lists achievements, and Dowd will have to suggest that the City’s financial achievements are the result of ICA or Act 47 team guidance, while the City's missteps are the Mayor's own fault. Finally Dowd will have to be charitable to Carmen Robinson, to avoid seeming a bully.
As we may all remember, Obama was behind right before the debates. By being cool and very reasonable sounding, and because McCain was cranky and less reasonable sounding, Obama pulled ahead and never looked back. For Dowd to score a similar result, the Mayor would have to be less on his game than he was with DeSantis. For that to happen, Dowd will have to challenge the Mayor the first time he doesn’t answer a question. Also Dowd will have to be somewhat dismissive when the Mayor lists achievements, and Dowd will have to suggest that the City’s financial achievements are the result of ICA or Act 47 team guidance, while the City's missteps are the Mayor's own fault. Finally Dowd will have to be charitable to Carmen Robinson, to avoid seeming a bully.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Blogging gets as bad as everything else.
This is very disturbing to me. (local) Bloggers have a habit of picking up clever videos made by campaigns or other “interested” parties and posting them on their blogs. I don’t think I ever have, except for that animated thing, and I don’t remember how I did that (I followed some sort of instructions). And several of us have produced those little animated things (myself not using much of its capabilities) with our own words. Bram started with Ravenstahl’s words, I used (mostly) a post I had put up, and then Matt Hogue and Bram created some scripts.
But what I have just seen is different. You may remember that Matt Hogue had a post about Franco “Dok” Harris (the Mayoral candidate) that had an impressive amount of internet research and a nasty tone. The level of research was so impressive that at least a couple of people voiced the opinion that the Mayor’s office or campaign had written the post. Personally I don’t know what to believe. College students famously have a lot of spare time, but Matt seems more interested in the West End Council race. In fact now he is Anthony Coghill’s campaign manager.
This is all leading to the video on Matt’s blog “What will Patrick say next to get elected?”. This is essentially an anti Pat Dowd commercial. Matt doesn’t source it in the post, but a click on the You Tube link reveals it was created by someone who calls themselves “pghrebel”. I am willing to believe that is probably not Matt. This is the only video they have uploaded, although their favorite videos are listed, mostly they seem to have to do with males lifting weights. The video itself has no credits, although it does put text on the screen several times. Now I assume it has not hit the television airwaves, although I suspect it will soon.
What makes the video interesting is the amount of access this person has. Maybe I am naïve, but I wouldn’t know how to lift the PG’s video. I certainly wouldn’t know how to lift the City’s Council video. I recently heard a discussion about how the City wants to put the Council video on the web, but has not done so yet. So how would you get access to that video, unless you were either a City IT employee, or a high level City employee?
Even the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth identified themselves. This video cites no campaign, no 501c. It is does not let voters know it’s producer’s agenda. Seems to me this surely bends if not breaks campaign laws. And its on Matt’s blog.
But what I have just seen is different. You may remember that Matt Hogue had a post about Franco “Dok” Harris (the Mayoral candidate) that had an impressive amount of internet research and a nasty tone. The level of research was so impressive that at least a couple of people voiced the opinion that the Mayor’s office or campaign had written the post. Personally I don’t know what to believe. College students famously have a lot of spare time, but Matt seems more interested in the West End Council race. In fact now he is Anthony Coghill’s campaign manager.
This is all leading to the video on Matt’s blog “What will Patrick say next to get elected?”. This is essentially an anti Pat Dowd commercial. Matt doesn’t source it in the post, but a click on the You Tube link reveals it was created by someone who calls themselves “pghrebel”. I am willing to believe that is probably not Matt. This is the only video they have uploaded, although their favorite videos are listed, mostly they seem to have to do with males lifting weights. The video itself has no credits, although it does put text on the screen several times. Now I assume it has not hit the television airwaves, although I suspect it will soon.
What makes the video interesting is the amount of access this person has. Maybe I am naïve, but I wouldn’t know how to lift the PG’s video. I certainly wouldn’t know how to lift the City’s Council video. I recently heard a discussion about how the City wants to put the Council video on the web, but has not done so yet. So how would you get access to that video, unless you were either a City IT employee, or a high level City employee?
Even the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth identified themselves. This video cites no campaign, no 501c. It is does not let voters know it’s producer’s agenda. Seems to me this surely bends if not breaks campaign laws. And its on Matt’s blog.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
If we waste money, how can we expect anyone to offer us more?
From a link on a comment on Bram’s Comet, to an extended video of Pat Dowd’s event about waste in City government on Mark Rauterkus site, I caught an interesting comment. Someone asked about federal stimulus money. Dr Dowd’s response was “if we don’t have a pattern and a culture of showing we know how to use our money, why should we expect more people to give us money down the road”.
Right now Pittsburgh is one of a hundred cities with their hands out. We are in better shape than some in that a lot of the jobs here aren’t so dependent on trade with other parts of the country. We have healthcare (some people come to us, and we have lots of built in patients right now, and for a few years to come), education (again, some people come to us) and a bit of financial, although our banks didn’t have as many houses to sell at bubble prices. But we are also in worse shape in many ways, with a shrinking tax base and debt that is only getting worse in this financial climate. We are going to need outside financial help.
But consider who would help us. The Feds? They will send some money our way, but their priorities are jobs, and our unemployment isn’t that bad. Helping us with debt isn’t as interesting as creating a thousand jobs in Charlotte.
I read a lot on blogs that people feel we have to force the State to help us. Go to Harrisburg and demand the State legislature give us all the money we want. How has that worked out for us so far?
Maybe if Onorato is governor, maybe. But he’s not there yet and may never get there. Is there anything else we can do?
Well, yeah, the whole idea of running government like adults. I mean, I hope Dowd is that adult. I am pretty sure Ravenstahl is not.
So if we set a standard, if we introduce transparency to government in a big way, if we have serious ethics and campaign finance reform, if we tighten our belts in a responsible manner and try to spend our money in the wisest fashion possible, maybe we can attract some State help, if only so they don’t have to deal with an endless Pittsburgh Act 47 saga.
Right now Pittsburgh is one of a hundred cities with their hands out. We are in better shape than some in that a lot of the jobs here aren’t so dependent on trade with other parts of the country. We have healthcare (some people come to us, and we have lots of built in patients right now, and for a few years to come), education (again, some people come to us) and a bit of financial, although our banks didn’t have as many houses to sell at bubble prices. But we are also in worse shape in many ways, with a shrinking tax base and debt that is only getting worse in this financial climate. We are going to need outside financial help.
But consider who would help us. The Feds? They will send some money our way, but their priorities are jobs, and our unemployment isn’t that bad. Helping us with debt isn’t as interesting as creating a thousand jobs in Charlotte.
I read a lot on blogs that people feel we have to force the State to help us. Go to Harrisburg and demand the State legislature give us all the money we want. How has that worked out for us so far?
Maybe if Onorato is governor, maybe. But he’s not there yet and may never get there. Is there anything else we can do?
Well, yeah, the whole idea of running government like adults. I mean, I hope Dowd is that adult. I am pretty sure Ravenstahl is not.
So if we set a standard, if we introduce transparency to government in a big way, if we have serious ethics and campaign finance reform, if we tighten our belts in a responsible manner and try to spend our money in the wisest fashion possible, maybe we can attract some State help, if only so they don’t have to deal with an endless Pittsburgh Act 47 saga.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Experience and the man
Matt Hogue likes to tell us that Mayor Ravenstahl has matured in the job, that he has more experience now and has benefited from it. I suspect Matt may be right. Early in the Mayor’s term, the stories the media was willing to print about him involved his interactions with celebrities and his acceptance of inappropriate gifts. But now the stories are about the Mayor’s use of campaign contributions to travel to the Super Bowl and for some meals during his trip to Europe, and how those contributors are getting lucrative contracts from the City. The Mayor has learned how business is done.
Ethics reform has resurfaced as an issue, as City Council turns its attention to it. But as far as the Mayor is concerned, that ship has sailed. Mind you, if someone offers the Mayor tickets to the Steelers, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind too much. But what the Mayor really wants is the cash as a contribution, which the Mayor can use to buy the tickets and shake a couple of hands at the game. Then it is all perfectly legal.
Campaign finance reform is also working its way through Council right now. The reform proposed by the Mayor and the County Executive would slow them down some on fund raising, but not by much. Of course the Mayor’s ace in the hole is his promise that if City and County Council’s final bills differ even a smidgen, the Mayor will again veto the bill. Even if the two Councils should find a way to agree, the Mayor could still veto their compromise bill if it differs from the original bill. Or because he feels like it. And the Mayor still likely has enough allies on Council that his veto would stand.
I’m hoping Pat Dowd won’t turn out to be Pittsburgh’s John Kerry. Still, we might all remember that though John Kerry was annoying at time, if elected in '04 he probably would have pushed for more regulation and oversight of the financial industry. In 2004 things weren’t so far gone that some cold water thrown on the housing finance industry and the credit default swap business would not have had a positive effect. We let that get away from us, because we were willing to believe Bush when he said that we needed him to keep us safe. Ravenstahl will say something similar, that we need a Democrat from the Bob O’Connor tradition, not some pointy headed professor type. But we get to make up our own mind what we need.
Ethics reform has resurfaced as an issue, as City Council turns its attention to it. But as far as the Mayor is concerned, that ship has sailed. Mind you, if someone offers the Mayor tickets to the Steelers, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind too much. But what the Mayor really wants is the cash as a contribution, which the Mayor can use to buy the tickets and shake a couple of hands at the game. Then it is all perfectly legal.
Campaign finance reform is also working its way through Council right now. The reform proposed by the Mayor and the County Executive would slow them down some on fund raising, but not by much. Of course the Mayor’s ace in the hole is his promise that if City and County Council’s final bills differ even a smidgen, the Mayor will again veto the bill. Even if the two Councils should find a way to agree, the Mayor could still veto their compromise bill if it differs from the original bill. Or because he feels like it. And the Mayor still likely has enough allies on Council that his veto would stand.
I’m hoping Pat Dowd won’t turn out to be Pittsburgh’s John Kerry. Still, we might all remember that though John Kerry was annoying at time, if elected in '04 he probably would have pushed for more regulation and oversight of the financial industry. In 2004 things weren’t so far gone that some cold water thrown on the housing finance industry and the credit default swap business would not have had a positive effect. We let that get away from us, because we were willing to believe Bush when he said that we needed him to keep us safe. Ravenstahl will say something similar, that we need a Democrat from the Bob O’Connor tradition, not some pointy headed professor type. But we get to make up our own mind what we need.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Are we ready?
I could do another short animation thingie using Dr Dowd’s “administration for sale” text as the script, or the pieces in the PG on the connections between contributions and City/Authority contracts. Once again the media is putting some instances of questionable behavior by the Ravenstahl administration out there for the public’s consideration. TV news reports will be vague and short, and few people will read the newspaper accounts. But they will be there, and they should rattle around the back of people’s minds.
Now, Pat Dowd is not an unknown. I would bet that at least 8 out of 10 voters would recognize his name, but I doubt many could say much about his background or what he stands for. I think it is even money that those who did have something to say about his past would have a negative impression (John Thompson, Schenley). Dr Dowd can claim the reformer mantle, but it may not stick.
So can Dr Dowd knock off the Mayor this time, with a low intensity Anyone But Luke sentiment simmering and a loose claim to a reformer/progressive mantle (with Al Gore … I mean Bill Peduto standing in the wings)? Bram thinks there is (maybe) a grassroots groundswell against Ravenstahl looking for an outlet. I think maybe.
I want to say something about Obama and Geithner (sp?), and the AIG bonuses that are really more income floor payments, but I am out of time and energy. Maybe later.
Now, Pat Dowd is not an unknown. I would bet that at least 8 out of 10 voters would recognize his name, but I doubt many could say much about his background or what he stands for. I think it is even money that those who did have something to say about his past would have a negative impression (John Thompson, Schenley). Dr Dowd can claim the reformer mantle, but it may not stick.
So can Dr Dowd knock off the Mayor this time, with a low intensity Anyone But Luke sentiment simmering and a loose claim to a reformer/progressive mantle (with Al Gore … I mean Bill Peduto standing in the wings)? Bram thinks there is (maybe) a grassroots groundswell against Ravenstahl looking for an outlet. I think maybe.
I want to say something about Obama and Geithner (sp?), and the AIG bonuses that are really more income floor payments, but I am out of time and energy. Maybe later.
Friday, March 20, 2009
My own little short ...
I notice Bram, Matt and Chris have all created these new little animation movies, competing with each other and advancing their agendas. Of course, I am hardly immune. I have created my own little movie. The text is from my post "History", my list of the Mayor's ethical lapses (I emblished for the sake of clarity here and there). As far as I can tell you can't add written text to these little animations yet. When you can I will add the links I had in "History". Until then, go look them up yourself.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
What's the score?
So how’s the primary going? Pat Dowd raised the question of a refinancing deal the Sewer and Water Authority got into, where the mechanism for determining the payments we have to make looks awful risky, and the extra hundred million raised has to be kept in the bank to defray the higher than expected payments. So there is another 400 million the City could be on the hook for, but alas (for Dr Dowd) we won’t find out till June.
Meanwhile, Mayor Ravenstahl called for a war on potholes. It is a pity Mayor Ravenstahl wasn’t in the White House instead of George Bush from 2001-2009 (the youngest President of a major country!). All of Mayor Ravenstahl’s wars, and there seem to be at least a few, are bloodless wars. Most bloggers and newspaper columnists would say they are in fact sham wars, but they seem to play ok with voters. Better than Droopy Dog Paul Tsongas-like bad news from Dr Dowd (sorry Pat, couldn't resist).
By the way, Did anyone catch not this past Sunday’s, but the Sunday before’s 60 Minutes. There was a story on how a particular financial arrangement between transit agencies and banks involving buying light rail cars using borrowed money from banks, then selling the cars to the banks using the same money, then leasing the cars and letting the banks take the tax write for the depreciation, well those deals are in trouble because the insurer, AIG, is no longer truly solvent. It was pointed out to me (by Chris Briem) that Chris Briem had linked to a blog post back in the fall that listed the Port Authority (of Allegheny County) as one of the transit agencies that did these deals. So let’s see, that’s 300 or 400 million for PWSA and who knows, maybe 30 or more million for PAT. Who says Pittsburgh’s better off than the rest of the country. Our bad news seems to be in suspended animation, but it looks just as bad or worse than everyone else’s.
Meanwhile, Mayor Ravenstahl called for a war on potholes. It is a pity Mayor Ravenstahl wasn’t in the White House instead of George Bush from 2001-2009 (the youngest President of a major country!). All of Mayor Ravenstahl’s wars, and there seem to be at least a few, are bloodless wars. Most bloggers and newspaper columnists would say they are in fact sham wars, but they seem to play ok with voters. Better than Droopy Dog Paul Tsongas-like bad news from Dr Dowd (sorry Pat, couldn't resist).
By the way, Did anyone catch not this past Sunday’s, but the Sunday before’s 60 Minutes. There was a story on how a particular financial arrangement between transit agencies and banks involving buying light rail cars using borrowed money from banks, then selling the cars to the banks using the same money, then leasing the cars and letting the banks take the tax write for the depreciation, well those deals are in trouble because the insurer, AIG, is no longer truly solvent. It was pointed out to me (by Chris Briem) that Chris Briem had linked to a blog post back in the fall that listed the Port Authority (of Allegheny County) as one of the transit agencies that did these deals. So let’s see, that’s 300 or 400 million for PWSA and who knows, maybe 30 or more million for PAT. Who says Pittsburgh’s better off than the rest of the country. Our bad news seems to be in suspended animation, but it looks just as bad or worse than everyone else’s.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Ruth Ann today
I happened to catch a bit of Meet the Press this past Sunday. David Frum, who had written a piece for Newsweek (which I read part of) explaining why Rush Limbaugh should not be allowed to be the de facto voice of the Republican party, was trying to defend Michael Steele’s comments that allowed for the possibility that abortion is part of a woman’s right to choose. Tavis Smiley was sitting right next to Frum, saying the Republicans can not simply put a colored face on TV and expect black voters to respond. Frum tried to differentiate between a colored face (bad) and a different face (good).
The Republicans are treading carefully now. The politicians know that the minute they criticize the Democrats, they will have to endure a lecture on the last eight years. They believe that Congressional Democrats are not interested in bipartisanship (and they are probably right), but the Republicans are not convincing making this case because they also wanted to punish the President for not giving them more on the stimulus bill and so not one Republican representative voted for it. Because the Republican politicians are currently paralyzed, the commentators like Rush Limbaugh are leaping into the vacuum. Rush can say whatever he wants on his show (I guess maybe there are callers, probably taped so that callers challenging Mr. Limbaugh’s views can simply be deleted).
Ruth Ann Dailey is also jumping in, carrying on the theme that the Democrats are communists. She gives us a mock letter from communists to Ed Rendell about the PLCB. Now, let me say up front that I would prefer liquor stores to be private. There is no reason why the State should control liquor sales, except to gouge citizens. But I don’t think Ruth Ann’s column was entirely about the LCB.
As I say, Ruth Ann’s letter is listed as from “Marx, Engels, Keynes & Krugman -- "Economists for a Better Tomorrow"”. In other words, she wants to link the Obama administration to communists, and Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist. Yes, Krugman is mostly a cheerleader for the Obama administration, but I defy Ruth Ann to show one credible shred of a link between Obama and communists. As for whether the Obama administration is pursing even slightly communistic policies, they have resisted stating that they are nationalizing the banks or any other industry. The government’s handling of AIG, despite having installed the current CEO and owning most of the stock, still has them saying they do nothing about the contractually mandated bonuses. The Obama administration knows it has to keep the current system running and so has to keep bankers and other financial professionals somewhat happy.
Meanwhile Ruth Ann lobs this comment at us: “Since the real estate bubble burst, triggering the economic meltdown, we've worked diligently to deflect attention away from Clinton-era mandates on lending standards and to pin responsibility for the disastrous economic fallout on the Bush administration.”
I will certainly admit that some of the mandates to loosen controls came from a Republican Congress during the Clinton years. Clinton may well have expected Al Gore to be elected President (he was, actually) and that Gore could have kept watch and stepped in if the loosened mandates proved problematic.
But the Republicans are being incredibly disingenuous when they complain about legislation from the Clinton era. We all know, for example, that the Democrats quickly came to dislike the Patriot act, but have never been able to do much of anything about it. Yet Republican commentators claim the Democrats prevented reform in the financial sector. That is bullshit. I would buy the notion that neither the Bush administration nor the Republicans in Congress nor the Democrats in Congress wanted to change things or restrict bad mortgages because the housing bubble was very popular (and I suspect the credit swaps were creating enough wealth to cause some better than average campaign contributions). The incentives were likely perverse, but still I bitterly resent Republicans blaming Democrats for something when they spent at least four years and possibly as much as eight years reaping the benefits and therefore doing nothing about the coming financial mess.
As an aside, Jim Cramer claimed, on the Dailey Show, that the financial meltdown was a one in million thing, despite the fact terms like housing bubble have been around for years. Later Cramer said that the 35 to 1 leveraged mortgages were considered realistic in a world that gave 30% returns year after year. That lster statement might explain why everyone turned a blind (and stupid) eye towards a clearly inevitable downturn.
Ruth Ann is clearly reverting to Republican code phrases and innuendo to slam the Democrats. Which is a sham, since she rails against the liberal media for doing that to Republicans. We are all still waiting for a legitimate Republican criticism of the current administration, and some hint they are interested in bipartisanship.
The Republicans are treading carefully now. The politicians know that the minute they criticize the Democrats, they will have to endure a lecture on the last eight years. They believe that Congressional Democrats are not interested in bipartisanship (and they are probably right), but the Republicans are not convincing making this case because they also wanted to punish the President for not giving them more on the stimulus bill and so not one Republican representative voted for it. Because the Republican politicians are currently paralyzed, the commentators like Rush Limbaugh are leaping into the vacuum. Rush can say whatever he wants on his show (I guess maybe there are callers, probably taped so that callers challenging Mr. Limbaugh’s views can simply be deleted).
Ruth Ann Dailey is also jumping in, carrying on the theme that the Democrats are communists. She gives us a mock letter from communists to Ed Rendell about the PLCB. Now, let me say up front that I would prefer liquor stores to be private. There is no reason why the State should control liquor sales, except to gouge citizens. But I don’t think Ruth Ann’s column was entirely about the LCB.
As I say, Ruth Ann’s letter is listed as from “Marx, Engels, Keynes & Krugman -- "Economists for a Better Tomorrow"”. In other words, she wants to link the Obama administration to communists, and Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist. Yes, Krugman is mostly a cheerleader for the Obama administration, but I defy Ruth Ann to show one credible shred of a link between Obama and communists. As for whether the Obama administration is pursing even slightly communistic policies, they have resisted stating that they are nationalizing the banks or any other industry. The government’s handling of AIG, despite having installed the current CEO and owning most of the stock, still has them saying they do nothing about the contractually mandated bonuses. The Obama administration knows it has to keep the current system running and so has to keep bankers and other financial professionals somewhat happy.
Meanwhile Ruth Ann lobs this comment at us: “Since the real estate bubble burst, triggering the economic meltdown, we've worked diligently to deflect attention away from Clinton-era mandates on lending standards and to pin responsibility for the disastrous economic fallout on the Bush administration.”
I will certainly admit that some of the mandates to loosen controls came from a Republican Congress during the Clinton years. Clinton may well have expected Al Gore to be elected President (he was, actually) and that Gore could have kept watch and stepped in if the loosened mandates proved problematic.
But the Republicans are being incredibly disingenuous when they complain about legislation from the Clinton era. We all know, for example, that the Democrats quickly came to dislike the Patriot act, but have never been able to do much of anything about it. Yet Republican commentators claim the Democrats prevented reform in the financial sector. That is bullshit. I would buy the notion that neither the Bush administration nor the Republicans in Congress nor the Democrats in Congress wanted to change things or restrict bad mortgages because the housing bubble was very popular (and I suspect the credit swaps were creating enough wealth to cause some better than average campaign contributions). The incentives were likely perverse, but still I bitterly resent Republicans blaming Democrats for something when they spent at least four years and possibly as much as eight years reaping the benefits and therefore doing nothing about the coming financial mess.
As an aside, Jim Cramer claimed, on the Dailey Show, that the financial meltdown was a one in million thing, despite the fact terms like housing bubble have been around for years. Later Cramer said that the 35 to 1 leveraged mortgages were considered realistic in a world that gave 30% returns year after year. That lster statement might explain why everyone turned a blind (and stupid) eye towards a clearly inevitable downturn.
Ruth Ann is clearly reverting to Republican code phrases and innuendo to slam the Democrats. Which is a sham, since she rails against the liberal media for doing that to Republicans. We are all still waiting for a legitimate Republican criticism of the current administration, and some hint they are interested in bipartisanship.
Friday, March 13, 2009
More questions than answers (mostly opinion)
I have attended a couple of workshops for PittPoint, a citizen journalist project of the Public Square Project. I don’t know where that will take me, if anywhere. I might have to give up this blog to establish and maintain some semblance that I can be objective, but there are lots of other issues (like having a day job) that come into play here. I plan to blog on this in the future (realizing the irony there).
But I mention that now to establish a framework for meta-analyzing (I think I made that word up) the PWSA issue that has popped up this week (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_615251.html, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09069/954383-53.stm). The PittPoint workshops have stressed the importance of trying to be fair and balanced (not like Fox News) and present both sides of an issue. In this case I think both Pat Dowd and Luke Ravenstahl are condescending to us, but both hope that they are doing it in such a way that we will think even worse of their opponent. Actually, I think both are doing it in a purely reflexive way, but I think what that says about their instincts in instructive.
(Enough foreplay) When Mayor Ravenstahl complains that it is unfortunate that Pat Dowd is “politicizing” the PWSA problems, he seems to be saying that this is not an issue he should be judged on. After all, Council (including Dowd) voted on this, and anyway, it is what voters hired Ravenstahl for, to make the tough calls. Nothing (much) has happened yet, a paltry extra three million paid, and the City is in negotiations with new insurers. I am assuming, by the way, that you have read stories and blogs on this, that you are up to speed on the role of insurers (you may know more than me on this). The administration is handling the issue, voters don’t need to be unnecessarily frightened by Dowd’s grandstanding and the only thing Dowd can accomplish here is to distract officials from doing their job.
Meanwhile, for Dowd’s part, he did vote for PWSA deal (as did the other eight on Council) back last April. He says he spent last weekend reading the 2000 page document of the debt package. Which is funny, Chris Briem put, on Null Space, a two hundred page document concerning the package, as well as other interesting links (like a document on the SEA debt). Not to say the 2000 page thing doesn’t exist, but maybe reading the 200 page might have got the job done. Dowd does say the document he read was the most difficult and opaque thing he has read, and why can’t these documents be written in plainer language. I am pretty sure Pat Dowd understands the importance of using precise technical language agreed upon by financial professionals, but there could also be a plainer summary that could be agreed upon by the parties to the deal.
Still, there is a subtext to Dowd's complaint that the PWSA entered into a risky deal and it should not have. Even the Trib points out thousands of cities and other public institutions and entities used the “interest-rate” swaps to finance (or in this case re-finance) debt. Should the PWSA have used a fixed rate refinance? It would not have gotten the extra hundred million (which is has since put in an interest account to pay the higher than expected rates) on the refi. Which is the problem. I don’t know who even came up with this deal, whether it was the administration or the PWSA or who. Michael Lamb and Eckert Seamens (as noted by The Pittsburgh Comet) criticized the deal at the time. Should government always take the safest, most conservative path? Doing so will mean in general that citizens will have to pay higher taxes, if they want an ambitious government. In specific in this case, it would mean the PWSA would have gotten much less than the extra hundred million in the refi. On the other hand the PWSA could have actually used the lesser amount; right now it is has the hundred million in savings until the situation sorts itself out.
On the third hand, Dowd complaint that the details of the debt package was not easily accessible to PWSA’s ratepayers does have some teeth. Maybe it is only my projection, but one thing that Pat Dowd has remained consistent about since even his days on the school board is his commitment to the idea of transparency of government. Even though there is a digital divide, and even though most people who do have high speed internet probably aren’t interested, the government has an obligation, as it spends our tax money and incurs ever increasing amounts of debt on our behalf, to share the details of what it does, in painful detail. We should get to know not only the Controller’s audit on street maintenance, but the Public Works department reports on what potholes in plans to fix and how it will spend it money (sealing cracks or re-paving). Since Public Works says it has no way to track how many potholes are fixed in a day, the citizens of Pittsburgh should be invited to make suggestions (such as the PDA’s the GOP issues for it’s door knocking operations during campaigns) on how to address that problem.
Dowd may be trying to make unfair political points by accusing the Mayor of having made a bad decision when many other Mayors and other public officials were making similar decisions across the country at the same time. But Dowd’s instincts on transparency seem dead on to me. And Ravenstahl’s seeming reflexive inclination to deny and conceal when challenged are just more evidence to me that he is a poor choice for Mayor.
But I mention that now to establish a framework for meta-analyzing (I think I made that word up) the PWSA issue that has popped up this week (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_615251.html, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09069/954383-53.stm). The PittPoint workshops have stressed the importance of trying to be fair and balanced (not like Fox News) and present both sides of an issue. In this case I think both Pat Dowd and Luke Ravenstahl are condescending to us, but both hope that they are doing it in such a way that we will think even worse of their opponent. Actually, I think both are doing it in a purely reflexive way, but I think what that says about their instincts in instructive.
(Enough foreplay) When Mayor Ravenstahl complains that it is unfortunate that Pat Dowd is “politicizing” the PWSA problems, he seems to be saying that this is not an issue he should be judged on. After all, Council (including Dowd) voted on this, and anyway, it is what voters hired Ravenstahl for, to make the tough calls. Nothing (much) has happened yet, a paltry extra three million paid, and the City is in negotiations with new insurers. I am assuming, by the way, that you have read stories and blogs on this, that you are up to speed on the role of insurers (you may know more than me on this). The administration is handling the issue, voters don’t need to be unnecessarily frightened by Dowd’s grandstanding and the only thing Dowd can accomplish here is to distract officials from doing their job.
Meanwhile, for Dowd’s part, he did vote for PWSA deal (as did the other eight on Council) back last April. He says he spent last weekend reading the 2000 page document of the debt package. Which is funny, Chris Briem put, on Null Space, a two hundred page document concerning the package, as well as other interesting links (like a document on the SEA debt). Not to say the 2000 page thing doesn’t exist, but maybe reading the 200 page might have got the job done. Dowd does say the document he read was the most difficult and opaque thing he has read, and why can’t these documents be written in plainer language. I am pretty sure Pat Dowd understands the importance of using precise technical language agreed upon by financial professionals, but there could also be a plainer summary that could be agreed upon by the parties to the deal.
Still, there is a subtext to Dowd's complaint that the PWSA entered into a risky deal and it should not have. Even the Trib points out thousands of cities and other public institutions and entities used the “interest-rate” swaps to finance (or in this case re-finance) debt. Should the PWSA have used a fixed rate refinance? It would not have gotten the extra hundred million (which is has since put in an interest account to pay the higher than expected rates) on the refi. Which is the problem. I don’t know who even came up with this deal, whether it was the administration or the PWSA or who. Michael Lamb and Eckert Seamens (as noted by The Pittsburgh Comet) criticized the deal at the time. Should government always take the safest, most conservative path? Doing so will mean in general that citizens will have to pay higher taxes, if they want an ambitious government. In specific in this case, it would mean the PWSA would have gotten much less than the extra hundred million in the refi. On the other hand the PWSA could have actually used the lesser amount; right now it is has the hundred million in savings until the situation sorts itself out.
On the third hand, Dowd complaint that the details of the debt package was not easily accessible to PWSA’s ratepayers does have some teeth. Maybe it is only my projection, but one thing that Pat Dowd has remained consistent about since even his days on the school board is his commitment to the idea of transparency of government. Even though there is a digital divide, and even though most people who do have high speed internet probably aren’t interested, the government has an obligation, as it spends our tax money and incurs ever increasing amounts of debt on our behalf, to share the details of what it does, in painful detail. We should get to know not only the Controller’s audit on street maintenance, but the Public Works department reports on what potholes in plans to fix and how it will spend it money (sealing cracks or re-paving). Since Public Works says it has no way to track how many potholes are fixed in a day, the citizens of Pittsburgh should be invited to make suggestions (such as the PDA’s the GOP issues for it’s door knocking operations during campaigns) on how to address that problem.
Dowd may be trying to make unfair political points by accusing the Mayor of having made a bad decision when many other Mayors and other public officials were making similar decisions across the country at the same time. But Dowd’s instincts on transparency seem dead on to me. And Ravenstahl’s seeming reflexive inclination to deny and conceal when challenged are just more evidence to me that he is a poor choice for Mayor.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Other really important stuff
I forgot one link to add to the list I had yesterday: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07080/771206-53.stm. It is maybe my favorite piece of reporting on the Mayor’s ethical problems. It is ostensibly about the trip on Ron Burkle’s jets, but it is really about the Mayor’s attitude, in March 2007, towards disclosing items given to him. I mention the date because Matt Hogue likes to say the Mayor has matured; I say he has discovered that if the gifts are campaign contributions he can spend the money during trips to Europe and on paying for a trip to the Super Bowl for himself, two (I believe) brothers and a couple of bodyguards.
But all that may not be the most important story right now. Pat Dowd spent last weekend reading a couple of thousand pages of a debt package that the Water and Sewer Authority entered into last summer. He called the thing "one of the most opaque and complicated things I have ever tried to understand." (the PG mentions that Dowd has a doctorate and taught at high school level, they do not mention that the doctorate is in history; still more than I have). As I understand it, the debt package involved making continuous swaps to keep the interest rate low. It’s hard to see how this would not involve transaction costs that would not eat up any savings, but in any event apparently the stock market drop and bank issues have caused problems and we are in fact paying more than we were supposed to. To further complicate things, the insurance firm that is guaranteeing this package wants out at their earliest opportunity, which is next June, which would adversely affect our situation (anyone see sixty minutes on Sunday?). Two Political Junkies and the The Pittsburgh Comet have already commented on this, I can only echo that this appears to be an important issue, one that is worthy of our attention. The Mayor, of course, criticizes Dowd for releasing sensitive information, and also says that no one could have known there was a problem with the banks last summer.
Because Bear Sterns hadn’t collapsed last spring. Oh wait …
But all that may not be the most important story right now. Pat Dowd spent last weekend reading a couple of thousand pages of a debt package that the Water and Sewer Authority entered into last summer. He called the thing "one of the most opaque and complicated things I have ever tried to understand." (the PG mentions that Dowd has a doctorate and taught at high school level, they do not mention that the doctorate is in history; still more than I have). As I understand it, the debt package involved making continuous swaps to keep the interest rate low. It’s hard to see how this would not involve transaction costs that would not eat up any savings, but in any event apparently the stock market drop and bank issues have caused problems and we are in fact paying more than we were supposed to. To further complicate things, the insurance firm that is guaranteeing this package wants out at their earliest opportunity, which is next June, which would adversely affect our situation (anyone see sixty minutes on Sunday?). Two Political Junkies and the The Pittsburgh Comet have already commented on this, I can only echo that this appears to be an important issue, one that is worthy of our attention. The Mayor, of course, criticizes Dowd for releasing sensitive information, and also says that no one could have known there was a problem with the banks last summer.
Because Bear Sterns hadn’t collapsed last spring. Oh wait …
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
History
Matt H lays out, for your consideration, several pieces of information about Franco “Dok” Harris Junior. The implication, to my mind, is that Mr. Harris is a drinker, opposed to publicly funded AIDs organizations, and in general is not a serious person. Now, I certainly would say that Mr. Harris has never held political office, and therefore is absolutely inexperienced in politics. But he has two graduate degrees, including an MBA from the highly regarded Tepper school. And his undergraduate work was done at Princeton, where he was active, apparently, in student government.
Now, Matt admits, in comments to this Pittsburgh Comet post to having biases. Fair enough, I certainly do too. In fact, I have worked on this, on and most off, for a little while. This is a list of the issues the Mayor has been involved in. It was supposed to be one page (like resumes are), but the addition of links pushed it further. This is what I have so far, maybe all I will ever have:
Halloween 2005: Steelers game: Council President Ravenstahl is cuffed but then released; influence used? (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_489262.html)
“Late” 2006: Dinner meeting between Pat Ford and Liberty Pacific media executives to agree to violate billboards zoning rules, Ravenstahl stops by, later receives 25,000 in campaign contributions from these executives. (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08108/874136-53.stm)
March 2007: Trip to NYC on Penguins owner Ron Burkle’s jet instead of attending scheduled community meeting. (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_498601.html)
April 2007: Oakmont: Gate crashed private American Express event with Tiger Woods even though he was told not to, approached Tiger Woods even though he was told not to. (http://kdka.com/topstories/Luke.Ravenstahl.Tiger.2.379852.html)
May: 2007: Approved promotion of four police officers, three of whom have had domestic violence related issues. (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07181/798369-53.stm)
June 2007: Instead of attending Council hearing on domestic violence issues in the police force, plays golf for two days paid for by Pittsburgh Penguins and UPMC (to the tune of $27,000 for a package for three), claims he received nothing of value and was conducting City business. (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_515982.html)
August 2007: Uses Homeland Security bought police SUV to go to Toby Keith concert, spills barbecue sauce in SUV. (http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/14260422/detail.html)
August 2007: Appearance before Ethics board. (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_523359.html)
December 2007 – January 2008: Energy two-bid contract. (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07087/772999-53.stm)
December 2007: Supports UPMC attempt to exempt itself proactively from taxes. (http://thebusmansholiday.blogspot.com/2007/12/upmc-side-agreement-on-pittsburgh.html)
January-March 2008: Lamar downtown LED billboard. (http://thebusmansholiday.blogspot.com/2008/04/billboard-back-story-brewing.html)
June 2008: Vetoes Council proposed campaign finance reform. (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_571986.html)
?-August 2008: Pat Ford scandal, accepting gifts, resignation with vague allegations. (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08240/907303-100.stm)
January 2009: Club Pittsburgh issue unfolds. (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09015/941926-53.stm)
January 2009: Proposes (with Onorato) campaign finance reform.(http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_606786.html)
February 2009: Trip to Super bowl paid with campaign cash (and parts of trip to Europe) and the parade. (http://thebusmansholiday.blogspot.com/2009/02/snoop-dogg-mayor-luke-power-of.html), (http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A59195)
February 2009 $1000 trash cans, with Ravenstahl’s name on them (free campaigning?).
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_612717.html
Now, Matt admits, in comments to this Pittsburgh Comet post to having biases. Fair enough, I certainly do too. In fact, I have worked on this, on and most off, for a little while. This is a list of the issues the Mayor has been involved in. It was supposed to be one page (like resumes are), but the addition of links pushed it further. This is what I have so far, maybe all I will ever have:
Halloween 2005: Steelers game: Council President Ravenstahl is cuffed but then released; influence used? (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_489262.html)
“Late” 2006: Dinner meeting between Pat Ford and Liberty Pacific media executives to agree to violate billboards zoning rules, Ravenstahl stops by, later receives 25,000 in campaign contributions from these executives. (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08108/874136-53.stm)
March 2007: Trip to NYC on Penguins owner Ron Burkle’s jet instead of attending scheduled community meeting. (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_498601.html)
April 2007: Oakmont: Gate crashed private American Express event with Tiger Woods even though he was told not to, approached Tiger Woods even though he was told not to. (http://kdka.com/topstories/Luke.Ravenstahl.Tiger.2.379852.html)
May: 2007: Approved promotion of four police officers, three of whom have had domestic violence related issues. (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07181/798369-53.stm)
June 2007: Instead of attending Council hearing on domestic violence issues in the police force, plays golf for two days paid for by Pittsburgh Penguins and UPMC (to the tune of $27,000 for a package for three), claims he received nothing of value and was conducting City business. (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_515982.html)
August 2007: Uses Homeland Security bought police SUV to go to Toby Keith concert, spills barbecue sauce in SUV. (http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/14260422/detail.html)
August 2007: Appearance before Ethics board. (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_523359.html)
December 2007 – January 2008: Energy two-bid contract. (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07087/772999-53.stm)
December 2007: Supports UPMC attempt to exempt itself proactively from taxes. (http://thebusmansholiday.blogspot.com/2007/12/upmc-side-agreement-on-pittsburgh.html)
January-March 2008: Lamar downtown LED billboard. (http://thebusmansholiday.blogspot.com/2008/04/billboard-back-story-brewing.html)
June 2008: Vetoes Council proposed campaign finance reform. (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_571986.html)
?-August 2008: Pat Ford scandal, accepting gifts, resignation with vague allegations. (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08240/907303-100.stm)
January 2009: Club Pittsburgh issue unfolds. (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09015/941926-53.stm)
January 2009: Proposes (with Onorato) campaign finance reform.(http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_606786.html)
February 2009: Trip to Super bowl paid with campaign cash (and parts of trip to Europe) and the parade. (http://thebusmansholiday.blogspot.com/2009/02/snoop-dogg-mayor-luke-power-of.html), (http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A59195)
February 2009 $1000 trash cans, with Ravenstahl’s name on them (free campaigning?).
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_612717.html
Covering the point spread ...
A bit more on the 11 points (God could only manage ten commandments).
Ravenstahl says "I know that not everybody will agree with my plan,". Well, yes and no. I mean, those points do basically cover all the things (vaguely) that you might want to see happen in the City. Who can argue with “Solve Our Legacy Costs Crisis”, for example?
Of course, who can explain exactly what that means, and how it is going to happen? Shouldn’t Ravenstahl explain that, or more accurately have explained it already? Further, if Ravenstahl means that he is going to work on all those 11 points all at once (like the Obama administration is trying to take on all our national problems at once), then yeah, some may question how a city in Act 47 status is going to do all that at once. Are the 11 points/goals ranked in the order they will be addressed? Why is greening the City so far down, then?
But basically disagreeing with Ravenstahl’s 11 points is like disagreeing with someone who says “don’t kick puppies”. Which is Ravenstahl’s intention. Voters will say to Dowd “why don’t you want to solve our legacy cost crisis?” or if Dowd agrees with Ravenstahl, then why is he running against him?
If it were me, I would have made each of the 11 points on Ravenstahl’s campaign web site clickable. They would have been hyperlinked to a detailed description of what Ravenstahl has done on this particular point and what he wants to do if re-elected. But that’s why I’m not a campaign person, because I think of stupid ideas like giving the voting public more information.
Ravenstahl says "I know that not everybody will agree with my plan,". Well, yes and no. I mean, those points do basically cover all the things (vaguely) that you might want to see happen in the City. Who can argue with “Solve Our Legacy Costs Crisis”, for example?
Of course, who can explain exactly what that means, and how it is going to happen? Shouldn’t Ravenstahl explain that, or more accurately have explained it already? Further, if Ravenstahl means that he is going to work on all those 11 points all at once (like the Obama administration is trying to take on all our national problems at once), then yeah, some may question how a city in Act 47 status is going to do all that at once. Are the 11 points/goals ranked in the order they will be addressed? Why is greening the City so far down, then?
But basically disagreeing with Ravenstahl’s 11 points is like disagreeing with someone who says “don’t kick puppies”. Which is Ravenstahl’s intention. Voters will say to Dowd “why don’t you want to solve our legacy cost crisis?” or if Dowd agrees with Ravenstahl, then why is he running against him?
If it were me, I would have made each of the 11 points on Ravenstahl’s campaign web site clickable. They would have been hyperlinked to a detailed description of what Ravenstahl has done on this particular point and what he wants to do if re-elected. But that’s why I’m not a campaign person, because I think of stupid ideas like giving the voting public more information.
Monday, March 09, 2009
11 points ... no, wait, ...Franco?
It was actually a fairly big day in local politics. Luke Ravenstahl released a 11 point plan for a Pittsburgh Renaissance III and upgraded his website. But that was quickly overshadowed by the announcement that Franco Harris’s son, Franco “Doc” Harris, is getting in the race as a independent. Harris could garner quite a few votes, especially since Franco Harris is arguably the most popular former Steeler ever. If Doc Harris had run in the primary he might have siphoned off enough African-American votes to give Dowd a chance. Which is why it is clever of him to run as an independent (IMO). He might get enough Republican, progressive and African American votes in the general to win.
But I actually want to talk about Ravenstahl’s 11 points (which I have not memorized any of yet). This appeared on his website sometime in the recent past (maybe today, timed to coincide with the announcement). There is a certain amount of genius in these eleven vague statements, and apparently Luke has already given general answers when asked about what he has done specifically done already on any one of these points, or what he plans specifically to do to achieve these goals. Luke doesn’t do specifics, but the average voters love him for it. He’s not as boring as a lot of those DC politicians. Instead Luke is (still) like a college kid, smart and earnest but also someone who knows how to have a good time.
(devil’s advocate mode) To the average voter, these eleven points look like a lot of specifics. Just them being there makes it sound like Luke has done a lot of homework, and then explained it better than that Mark DeSantis ever did. DeSantis rambled on about micro-loans and letting workers rush out of the City. Luke told him, not gonna sell da city down da river (or up da river, or whatever). Luke is good at explaining things with just the right amount of details, so the average guy gets it. Let the brainiacs take a job in Luke’s administration, pushing pencils around. Meanwhile, Luke can make the big decisions the City needs. (/devil’s advocate mode)
You thing I’m wrong about the average voter? Wait till the primary. Pat Dowd needs to grab the attention of the average Joe soon, or all will be lost.
But I actually want to talk about Ravenstahl’s 11 points (which I have not memorized any of yet). This appeared on his website sometime in the recent past (maybe today, timed to coincide with the announcement). There is a certain amount of genius in these eleven vague statements, and apparently Luke has already given general answers when asked about what he has done specifically done already on any one of these points, or what he plans specifically to do to achieve these goals. Luke doesn’t do specifics, but the average voters love him for it. He’s not as boring as a lot of those DC politicians. Instead Luke is (still) like a college kid, smart and earnest but also someone who knows how to have a good time.
(devil’s advocate mode) To the average voter, these eleven points look like a lot of specifics. Just them being there makes it sound like Luke has done a lot of homework, and then explained it better than that Mark DeSantis ever did. DeSantis rambled on about micro-loans and letting workers rush out of the City. Luke told him, not gonna sell da city down da river (or up da river, or whatever). Luke is good at explaining things with just the right amount of details, so the average guy gets it. Let the brainiacs take a job in Luke’s administration, pushing pencils around. Meanwhile, Luke can make the big decisions the City needs. (/devil’s advocate mode)
You thing I’m wrong about the average voter? Wait till the primary. Pat Dowd needs to grab the attention of the average Joe soon, or all will be lost.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Party Wars IV: A New Hope
I remember last year smug conservative local blog commenters, who, right after smugly asking liberal blog posters whether they have a degree in business or economics or own a company, would then extol the virtues of Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal. They are supposed to be smarter and more disciplined than their Democratic counterparts (read: Obama).
Except that now we have seen Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal up close. We have seen Michael Steele attempt to wrest control of the Republican party away from Rush Limbaugh by pointing out (quite rightly) that Limbaugh is primarily an entertainer, and his primary concern is ratings. If the conservative audience dwindles, Limbaugh would turn liberal like that. Not to say that most politicians don’t blow in the wind as well (e.g Arlen Specter, moderate Republican and Zell Miller, conservative southern Democrat), but entertainers almost by definition need to be able to change their philosophy or they will relegated to having a cult following (e.g. Ed Begley Jr).
And Bobby Jindal’s Republican reaction to the non-State of the Union address by President Obama was painful. His delivery reminded Jon Stewart of Fred Rodgers, and his rhetoric was simply to call once again for tax cuts. Why should we believe that the Republicans don’t want to follow Grover Nordquist’s philosophy of shrinking government to a size where it could be drown in a bath tub?
National talking heads have started to observe more and more that a sizable fraction of the population on the low end of the income scale not only does not pay tax but gets money back from the government. I see this as I prepare taxes for the poor at a VITA site, that they get three, four, five or even six thousand back in a tax return, including as much as forty eight hundred in earned income credit, and a refundable part of child tax credit up to a thousand dollars a child. So in addition to retuning federal taxes with-held, the feds give people thousands of dollars in additional income, to help them out for the year. Now, this is a matter of giving a single mom with two or three kid an extra five thousand dollars a year so, to stretch her income from $20,000 to $25,000, hardly giving her an opulent lifestyle.
My point in mentioning this is that these are the people who will see their assistance cut. Tax cuts are not going to hit rural red districts and rural red states. Conservatives who talk about cutting taxes one minute start talking about how defense is being cut too much the next, that our troops can do anything if we give them enough money (and out of work poor people to chew up). It’s head start and the earned income tax credit that conservatives are still gunning for. And if Mitch McConnell can turn around Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, even for one vote, then the Republicans (in the Senate) can demonstrate that the minority still controls the fate of this country. They may not be able to enact their own plans, but they would be able to keep the country from recovering from the recession that they caused. If they did that. Any bets that they would like to try (hint: did Rush Limbaugh say he would like Obama to succeed)?
Except that now we have seen Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal up close. We have seen Michael Steele attempt to wrest control of the Republican party away from Rush Limbaugh by pointing out (quite rightly) that Limbaugh is primarily an entertainer, and his primary concern is ratings. If the conservative audience dwindles, Limbaugh would turn liberal like that. Not to say that most politicians don’t blow in the wind as well (e.g Arlen Specter, moderate Republican and Zell Miller, conservative southern Democrat), but entertainers almost by definition need to be able to change their philosophy or they will relegated to having a cult following (e.g. Ed Begley Jr).
And Bobby Jindal’s Republican reaction to the non-State of the Union address by President Obama was painful. His delivery reminded Jon Stewart of Fred Rodgers, and his rhetoric was simply to call once again for tax cuts. Why should we believe that the Republicans don’t want to follow Grover Nordquist’s philosophy of shrinking government to a size where it could be drown in a bath tub?
National talking heads have started to observe more and more that a sizable fraction of the population on the low end of the income scale not only does not pay tax but gets money back from the government. I see this as I prepare taxes for the poor at a VITA site, that they get three, four, five or even six thousand back in a tax return, including as much as forty eight hundred in earned income credit, and a refundable part of child tax credit up to a thousand dollars a child. So in addition to retuning federal taxes with-held, the feds give people thousands of dollars in additional income, to help them out for the year. Now, this is a matter of giving a single mom with two or three kid an extra five thousand dollars a year so, to stretch her income from $20,000 to $25,000, hardly giving her an opulent lifestyle.
My point in mentioning this is that these are the people who will see their assistance cut. Tax cuts are not going to hit rural red districts and rural red states. Conservatives who talk about cutting taxes one minute start talking about how defense is being cut too much the next, that our troops can do anything if we give them enough money (and out of work poor people to chew up). It’s head start and the earned income tax credit that conservatives are still gunning for. And if Mitch McConnell can turn around Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, even for one vote, then the Republicans (in the Senate) can demonstrate that the minority still controls the fate of this country. They may not be able to enact their own plans, but they would be able to keep the country from recovering from the recession that they caused. If they did that. Any bets that they would like to try (hint: did Rush Limbaugh say he would like Obama to succeed)?
Saturday, March 07, 2009
What's in a gallon ... (about 20% more in England)
As I mentioned in a comment yesterday, I probably was a bit hasty in reporting the fantastic mileage of the cars on Top Gear on Thursday. I sorta knew there was something called an "Imperial Gallon" (aproximately 4.5L, as compared to approximately 3.8L for a US gallon, according to wikipedia). So the MPG the Top Gear guys quoted has a bigger G. If I use imperial gallons for my mileage, I think I am up around 50 MPG highway, and around 36 combined. Not bad.
Still, that VW Polo diesel is pretty impressive.
Still, that VW Polo diesel is pretty impressive.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Our mileage does vary ...
I am a big fan of the Television Show “Top Gear” on BBC America. If you are not familiar with the show, it is three guys presenting (as they say in the UK) a program about cars. They review horribly expensive performance cars that no one will ever be able to afford, they put a celebrity guest in a Daewoo Nubria (actually the English Chevrolet model of the Daewoo) and have them race around their track and the have humorous challenges for the three presenters. It might be to spend 1000 pounds on a used car and turn it into a police car (complete with secret weapons), and then test out how well they did, or to have one them race a parachutist with a flying squirrel suit who has jumped from a helicopter, or to put to various challenges two luxury cars from the seventies (a Rolls and A Mercedes) that would have been the type to have been used by Elton John or Idi Amin. I hope you get the idea.
Anyway, the other night the challenge on the program was a race (not surprisingly). There is a resort town in England called Blackpool (the subject of a different series) where apparently they have a light turning on event every year (maybe this episode was near Christmas, I have no idea). They invite a celebrity to flip the switch, this year it was the Top Gear presenter’s turn. But the producers of top Gear decided to turn it into a race, where the three would start from a point in Switzerland and drive to Blackpool, 750 miles away. They could choose their own type of car. Whoever got there first would flick the switch. But the twist was they could only use one tank of gas.
So one fellow chose a Suburu diesel economy model that has a pretty big gas tank, one chose a Volkswagen mini type diesel car with a smaller gas tank, and one chose a Jaguar diesel touring sedan, because he reckoned the challenge was impossible and he wanted to run out of gas near his home (which is near London, a couple of hundred miles from Blackpool).
The segment was fun to watch and interesting, but what struck me was the gas mileage they reported as they were going along. They, of course, have cars that report real time gas mileage (I think many American cars also now do this, but probably not as many models as European car companies have that do). So the Volkswagen was getting 75 miles per gallon, the Suburu was getting 70 and even the Jag was getting 50 some miles per gallon.
This really pisses me off. All the Americans who say we need to drill off the coasts and in Alaska, so we can put fuel in the SUV’s that make under twenty MPG on the highway. Engine technology got better over the last thirty years, and the Europeans used that technology to make their cars more efficient and we used it to make our cars more powerful. We made heavier and less stable SUV’s that have the speed of a muscle car and the handling of a panel van. At under twenty miles per gallon.
I hope Obama gets serious and arranges to get some efficient cars imported over here, or even better sets up a plant in Pittsburgh to make them here. 75 MPG. Although your mileage may vary.
Anyway, the other night the challenge on the program was a race (not surprisingly). There is a resort town in England called Blackpool (the subject of a different series) where apparently they have a light turning on event every year (maybe this episode was near Christmas, I have no idea). They invite a celebrity to flip the switch, this year it was the Top Gear presenter’s turn. But the producers of top Gear decided to turn it into a race, where the three would start from a point in Switzerland and drive to Blackpool, 750 miles away. They could choose their own type of car. Whoever got there first would flick the switch. But the twist was they could only use one tank of gas.
So one fellow chose a Suburu diesel economy model that has a pretty big gas tank, one chose a Volkswagen mini type diesel car with a smaller gas tank, and one chose a Jaguar diesel touring sedan, because he reckoned the challenge was impossible and he wanted to run out of gas near his home (which is near London, a couple of hundred miles from Blackpool).
The segment was fun to watch and interesting, but what struck me was the gas mileage they reported as they were going along. They, of course, have cars that report real time gas mileage (I think many American cars also now do this, but probably not as many models as European car companies have that do). So the Volkswagen was getting 75 miles per gallon, the Suburu was getting 70 and even the Jag was getting 50 some miles per gallon.
This really pisses me off. All the Americans who say we need to drill off the coasts and in Alaska, so we can put fuel in the SUV’s that make under twenty MPG on the highway. Engine technology got better over the last thirty years, and the Europeans used that technology to make their cars more efficient and we used it to make our cars more powerful. We made heavier and less stable SUV’s that have the speed of a muscle car and the handling of a panel van. At under twenty miles per gallon.
I hope Obama gets serious and arranges to get some efficient cars imported over here, or even better sets up a plant in Pittsburgh to make them here. 75 MPG. Although your mileage may vary.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Actually getting something done ...
So on Thursday I complained that the Mayor (and the challenger Pat Dowd) had not updated their campaign websites in the last couple of years. Both have now done so (and I am confident that I had nothing to with that, I just spoke too soon, as I often do).
http://www.lukeformayor.com/
http://www.dowdformayor.com/
Well, both are in the process of doing so, both sites are under construction. Mayor Ravenstahl’s campaign site immediately adopts an informal tone when you type in the URL “Luke for Mayor”. By contrast, Pat Dowd’s uses the same phrase, but with his last name. Dowd’s has working widgets for joining the mailing list, becoming a volunteer or making a donation, and nothing else. Mayor Ravenstahl’s site has a widget for emailing the Ravenstahl campaign and a phone number, and nothing else. So the broke Pat Dowd is once again showing much more internet acumen than his competitor. But neither of them is offering us their assessment of where the City is, or where they think it should go. ‘cause voters wouldn’t be interested in that (a statement I make tongue in cheek, but in fact is probably all too accurate).
It still appears that Pat Dowd is not interested in going after Mayor Ravenstahl’s little mis-steps (Tiger Woods, the SUV, the Lemieux tournament, etc), although he does end up talking about trash cans and where the City is going (at least, that is what I took away from this post on the Pittsburgh Comet).
Meanwhile, the Mayor has a new campaign slogan “Getting it done”. I pointed out, on the Comet, how that made me think of Larry the Cable Guy’s line “Git’er done”. I like a Mayor who does not hold himself above the rest of us and all, but this Mayor seems to be actively pushing the idea that he doesn’t need to explain his plans or history to us, that it is enough that he says he has made accomplishments, compared to his predecessors. In fact, his democratic committee endrsement letter (http://matth614.blogspot.com/2009/02/more-seeking.html) indicates that before he took over, the City was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Before he took over … during Bob O’Connor’s brief tenure?
http://www.lukeformayor.com/
http://www.dowdformayor.com/
Well, both are in the process of doing so, both sites are under construction. Mayor Ravenstahl’s campaign site immediately adopts an informal tone when you type in the URL “Luke for Mayor”. By contrast, Pat Dowd’s uses the same phrase, but with his last name. Dowd’s has working widgets for joining the mailing list, becoming a volunteer or making a donation, and nothing else. Mayor Ravenstahl’s site has a widget for emailing the Ravenstahl campaign and a phone number, and nothing else. So the broke Pat Dowd is once again showing much more internet acumen than his competitor. But neither of them is offering us their assessment of where the City is, or where they think it should go. ‘cause voters wouldn’t be interested in that (a statement I make tongue in cheek, but in fact is probably all too accurate).
It still appears that Pat Dowd is not interested in going after Mayor Ravenstahl’s little mis-steps (Tiger Woods, the SUV, the Lemieux tournament, etc), although he does end up talking about trash cans and where the City is going (at least, that is what I took away from this post on the Pittsburgh Comet).
Meanwhile, the Mayor has a new campaign slogan “Getting it done”. I pointed out, on the Comet, how that made me think of Larry the Cable Guy’s line “Git’er done”. I like a Mayor who does not hold himself above the rest of us and all, but this Mayor seems to be actively pushing the idea that he doesn’t need to explain his plans or history to us, that it is enough that he says he has made accomplishments, compared to his predecessors. In fact, his democratic committee endrsement letter (http://matth614.blogspot.com/2009/02/more-seeking.html) indicates that before he took over, the City was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Before he took over … during Bob O’Connor’s brief tenure?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
