Bloomingpol's Blog

Time is not neutral

Why all those idiots who keep saying we have to stay in Iraq are wrong.

Link: THE NEWS BLOG.

our invasion of Iraq fulfilled Osama bin Laden's fondest hopes, and ... the longer we stay there the better for al Qaeda. I like the way Perret puts it — Time is not neutral. Time is on the enemy's side. The more time they get, the stronger they will be.

An Evening with Our Legislators

Sunday, May 20, 7-9 pm Deerfield Library

Our five state representatives and state senator have been invited to a public forum on the 2007 Legislative Session for all residents of Deerfield, Candia, Nottingham and Northwood. The NH House of Representatives has considered over 1000 pieces of legislation, ranging from requiring licensing of contractors and masseuse, the revamping of the state retirement system, legalizing civil unions, expanding coverage of health insurance for young adults, eliminating the burning of construction debris, increasing the minimum wage, paying the legal fees of the Supreme Court justices impeached several years ago, banning greyhound racing and legalizing medical marijuana…and don’t forget the definition of an adequate education and the state budget, LCHIP and renaming the Epsom Traffic circle in honor of Officers Briggs and Charron.

This year we are represented by four freshmen legislators and Rep Johnson who is the most senior member of the NH House. This event will be your chance to ask them and our state senator about issues, the challenge of legislating and how they decide their positions of a wide range of legislation.

The “Evening with our Legislators” is sponsored by the Deerfield Democratic Town Committee. We hope you’ll join us at the Deerfield Library, 4 Old Center Rd. For questions, call Rebecca at 463-7692.

How Republicans "Govern"

This article reminds me of how my town was being run last year!

Link: Hullabaloo.

It's not that taxes were ever popular, any more than paying your electric bill is "popular" or buying a new furnace is "popular." But until the GOP hit on their free lunch propaganda they were just considered a fact of life ("death and taxes") as long as the rich weren't perceived to be getting off easy and the government was delivering services to the people. Republican campaign tactics and governance have pretty much destroyed that resigned acceptance by making people believe that taxes are inherently evil and if the government needs to do something it will magically find the money some other way. The truth is that the Republicans have been running a game that's the equivalent of you or I taking off work without pay for weeks so we can go to Vegas and play roulette with our credit cards. One only hopes "the grown-ups" haven't gone so far that we will have to spend the next decade suffering from the hangover.

More on education

One of the things that vision accomplishes is to integrate ideas from all levels of governmental policy. In small NH towns, there are times when you would think that there was a wall around the town, that no money comes in from other layers of government, and no money flows out, so cutting school funding at that level is the only solution to the tax burden problem. It is almost impossible to even discuss unfunded mandates for special ed, it is like throwing your words into a black hole, they just vanish and we move on. In our town, because so far our school budgets have passed, the town budget, which is much smaller and contributes much less to the property tax assessment, is always under the gun, as a safer place to attack. No kids involved. (Unless you count fire and police, and they seldom get the ax.)
One of the things I really hold against the Republicans who have and still represent our state in Congress is the constant promise to do something about the unfunded education mandates and then somehow not succeeding. They get credit for saying it, apparently.
This is why I believe that we have to change the conversation on education to what we truly value, something that is right there in the NH Constitution but is another phrase that goes into the black hole, “cherishing” education. There was a reason for that, the need for an educated citizenry who could defend their rights through governmental processes. Instead we argue about the right to carry concealed weapons into schools! And that passes for the NH brand of “civil rights.” We don’t need educated citizens to make government work for us if we don’t believe government works, period. We can all carry guns and get what we want and need that way, or something.
The whole picture of what education is for has become skewed, from an educated citizenry to a trained labor force. I would like to think I am more than a money-making machine. I have been, and continue to be, part of my town government, one of those volunteers who does the committee and board work that keeps the town moving forward.

Gov. Bill Richardson

I went to hear Gov. Richardson at the Rockingham Democrats Clambake this afternoon. First of all it was a chance to catch up with some people I hadn’t seen for a couple of months, having been completely taken up, politically, in my own town issues and election. I caught up with some of the Carol campaign folks and some of the state reps and other candidates I was involved with as both town chair and campaign manager for my husband’s run for state rep. (He didn’t win this time, but may try again next year.) I got to hear my congresswoman give another concise and powerful description of what she has been doing, and to hear three people who are probably going to vie for the chance to take out Sununu.
Gov. Richardson spoke about what he would do in the “first six days” of his presidency. He hit all the points that a Democrat will need to hit, Iraq, education, healthcare, etc. I had come into the afternoon interested in his foreign policy credentials, and he did not disappoint. I had heard a couple of things in the blogosphere that concerned me about his position on choice, but he was unequivocal in his support. He said nothing about civil rights to raise any flags with me. I tend to like Democratic governors as candidates, because they have had the challenge of actually running something, rather than debating it. (Perhaps having been a selectman in my town biases me toward people who successfully run a governmental entity, since I know how hard even a town can be.)
Perhaps the only place where I had some discomfort was in his talk about education. For most of us in NH, this is the really distressing issue at home, because we are in such a bind with our funding. He said a lot about accountability, and bringing back our preeminence in math and science, but I just didn’t end up feeling that his heart was in it. I would say his approach needs more work. It just had no coherence for me, no sense that he really had a solution.
This may be because I think that education is so wrapped up in all the other issues that impact our children that discussing it as if it were in another room from healthcare, and the increase in poverty and the disdain for women and children that pervade our society today, despite all the talk of “family values,” is just missing the point. It is almost impossible to educate a child who is not healthy, well-fed, feeling loved and part of a “family” (whatever form that may take), and with parent figures who find value in learning and have time for their children.
I don’t think any of our social issues are going to have a chance to be fixed until we change our whole value system. We need to be willing to really plan for a future for our children, and so many of the evils we are now undergoing have to do with a devaluation of human existence. I am not talking “pro-life” in the sense the right means it, which stops as soon as you are born. I am talking about making a world where every child in every country has a chance to live a decent life with enough food, medical care, and love from the community. There is no reason we can’t do that, except the greed and aggression that seem to be the “values” we have been worshipping for far too long.
So I come back to NH, where we just can’t seem to really agree that children are our future and must come first. We are a rich state and have managed to get away with not funding education or healthcare adequately because there is almost enough money to do a passable job. If we were a poorer state, with lower per capita incomes, the way we fund schools would be a disaster. But this is no excuse not to change our attitudes and make our children a priority.
I have no children or grandchildren in NH schools. This does not make me care less. The years that I have left will be better, selfishly, if the citizens of my state, my country and my planet are healthy, well-educated, community-oriented people, and that can only happen if they are cared for as children.
There has been discussion of whether we should be looking for vision in our candidate for President, or looking for policies. I think we need both, because policy with no vision driving it is hollow. I think that is what was lacking today in Richardson’s talking about education. He has no real vision, so it sounded like a laundry list. Certainly not something to rule him out at all, just something he needs to work on.
We are facing an embarrassment of riches as Democrats this year. The Republicans are simply facing embarrassment. I came away liking Richardson more than when I went in, and I hear much the same from others who have heard other candidates. Not a bad place to be at all. What a difference winning an election makes!

Cost of the war to NH

Link: Democrats.senate.gov - Senator Harry Reid, Majority Leader.

Number of Active Duty Service-Members in Iraq: 1,014 Number of Reserve Forces in Iraq: 246 Number of Service-Members Killed in Iraq: 20 Number of Service-Members Wounded in Iraq: 159 Cost of War to the People of New Hampshire: $1.5 billion

Maybe it is time we learned to ask for help?

This is like Iraq - we don't need your damned help! We can't leave because the Iraqis need us, but we never discuss having other countries take over there. And we have left thousands of American citizens from the Gulf Coast to fend for themselves because we just don't need any help from anyone.

Link: Most Katrina Aid From Overseas Went Unclaimed - washingtonpost.com.

The struggle to apply foreign aid in the aftermath of the hurricane, which has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $125 billion so far, is another reminder of the federal government's difficulty leading the recovery. Reports of government waste and delays or denials of assistance have surfaced repeatedly since hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005.

What are we eating?

Link: WP: FDA aware of dangers to food -
washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com
.

Tomorrow, a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing on the unprecedented spate of recalls."This administration does not like regulation, this administration does not like spending money, and it has a hostility toward government. The poisonous result is that a program like the FDA is going to suffer at every turn of the road," said Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the full House committee. Dingell is considering introducing legislation to boost the agency's accountability, regulatory authority and budget.In the peanut butter case, an agency report shows that FDA inspectors checked into complaints about salmonella contamination in a ConAgra Foods factory in Georgia in 2005. But when company managers refused to provide documents the inspectors requested, the inspectors left and did not follow up.

As always, the real news from Iraq from Juan Cole

Link: Informed Comment.

Reuters reports that a lot of wounded vets from the Iraq War are having to turn to private care. A chilling passage: "Of the nearly 24,000 wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, about a third suffer from some degree of traumatic brain injury, or TBI, according to the General Accounting Office."What? A third have brain injuries! That's 8,000 persons!Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked Sunday that the US military halt its construction of a security wall around the Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya. Al-Maliki spoke from Cairo where he is meeting with foreign ministers of Iraq's neighbors. The mainstream US media will sidestep this point, but al-Maliki pretty explicitly said that the reason he called off the wall building is that he doesn't want his government compared to that of Israel. That is, the Adhamiya wall is being likened in the Arab world to the Apartheid Wall being built by the Israelis in the West Bank. Al-Maliki made the statement in Cairo, and when he referred to the "other walls" he didn't want the one in Adhamiya compared to, he pointed toward Israel.

Wolfowitz's girlfriend problem | Salon.com

I wonder if maybe they just can't help themselves, that the temptations of power are just too great to resist. Makes you wonder how other administrations managed to refrain from such blatant patronage.

Link: Wolfowitz's girlfriend problem | Salon.com .

Paul Wolfowitz's tenure as president of the World Bank has turned into yet another case study of neoconservative government in action. It bears resemblance to the military planning for the invasion of Iraq, during which Wolfowitz, as deputy secretary of defense, arrogantly humiliated Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki for suggesting that the U.S. force level was inadequate. It has similarities to the twisting of intelligence used to justify the war, in which Wolfowitz oversaw the construction of a parallel operation within the Pentagon, the Office of Special Plans, to shunt disinformation directly to the White House, without its being vetted by CIA analysts, about Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to al-Qaida and his weapons of mass destruction, and sought to fire Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, for factually reporting before the invasion that Saddam had not revived his nuclear weapons program. Wolfowitz's regime also uncannily looks like the occupation of Iraq run by the Coalition Provisional Authority, from which Wolfowitz blackballed State Department professionals -- instead staffing it with inexperienced ideologues -- and to whom Wolfowitz sent daily orders.