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Monday, September 29, 2008
If you haven’t OD’d on bad news yet….
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While you’re cruising metro Atlanta gas stations, looking for that telltale line of cars that indicates you may have hit the mother lode, here’s something to contemplate:
“The rise in global carbon dioxide emissions last year outpaced international researchers’ most dire projections, according to figures being released today, as human-generated greenhouse gases continued to build up in the atmosphere despite international agreements and national policies aimed at curbing climate change.
In 2007, carbon released from burning fossil fuels and producing cement increased 2.9 percent over that released in 2006, to a total of 8.47 gigatons, or billions of metric tons, according to the Australia-based Global Carbon Project, an international consortium of scientists that tracks emissions.
This output is at the very high end of scenarios outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and could translate into a global temperature rise of more than 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, according to the panel’s estimates.”
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Two-stepping on the edge of economic disaster
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The bailout plan is now pretty much dead, at least in this version.
Why? Because the House Republicans fell well short of the votes their leadership said they could deliver, voting 2-1 against the plan. For some in the GOP, there’s a narcissistic, preening quality to their stance, a willingness to risk broad economic collapse so that they can tell themselves they are people of principle.
(UPDATE: I just got an email statement from U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, Republican from Georgia, who opposed the legislation. It illustrates my point perfectly:
“When faced with a tough decision, I rely on my principles - that smaller government is better and that markets work better bureaucratic decisions. While this bailout may work in the short term, I’m concerned greatly about the long-term consequences. When government willingly steps in to rescue people from risky behavior, government creates an incentive for future risky behavior. When businesses accept greater regulation in order to receive a bailout, we enlarge government, distort markets and render capitalism less efficient.”
The problem is, the folks back home can’t feed their kids with principle. Principle doesn’t save jobs. Principle doesn’t protect the nest eggs of retirees. In this case, principle just makes a few people feel better about themselves.)
On the other hand, Republicans are trying to put some of the blame on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a partisan speech she gave just before the vote in which she blamed the GOP for the crisis.
And to tell you the truth, they have a very good point. As I listened to that speech, I was thinking that this is a major mistake. There is a time and place for everything, and that was neither the time nor the place for that speech.
UPDATE II: Barney Frank has responded to that charge, saying that Republicans are in effect saying they voted against the national interest because they got their feelings hurt. It’s a valid point on a purely logical basis, but human emotion plays a very big role in moments such as this. It was still a poor move by Pelosi.
UPDATE III: And the Dow average closes down 778 points.
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Now what? Bailout plan in big trouble
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bailout plan rejected; Dow Jones down more than 600 points.
They’re leaving the vote open for now, so major arm-twisting is no doubt underway.
But it doesn’t look good.
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IRS is not “gagging” churches
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Conservative ministers across the country, including the Rev. Jody Hice of Barrow County, have decided to challenge IRS regulations prohibiting use of churches to endorse political candidates.
“From his pulpit at Bethlehem First Baptist Church outside Atlanta, (Hice) urged his congregation to vote for Sen. John McCain and to not vote for Sen. Barack Obama,” according to an AJC story by Christopher Quinn.
Hice and other ministers taking part in “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” are trying to provoke a court fight with the IRS over its regulations. The effort was organized by the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, which sees the IRS rules as an infringement on the First Amendment freedoms of religion and speech.
The rules are neither. Hice and other ministers have every right to preach politics from their pulpits. Nothing government does can or will stop them. However, they simply cannot endorse candidates AND maintain their tax-exempt status. That status is a special benefit conferred by government, and government has every right to set conditions on receipt of that benefit.
Furthermore, the IRS rules in question apply not just to churches but to a wide array of tax-exempt non-profit groups that perform religious, educational or charitable functions. Donations to such groups are tax-deductible; donations to political groups and candidates are not.
It is perfectly reasonable and fair for the IRS to enact rules to protect that distinction.
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McCain’s debate demeanor may have crystallized voter fears
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With the presidential race sliding away from him, John McCain needed something big to happen in Friday night’s foreign-policy debate.
He didn’t get it.
McCain did fine, as did Barack Obama. In fact, I personally thought McCain might have gotten the better of the argument. The early polls disagreed, however, suggesting that voters were more impressed with Obama’s performance on a topic that should have been McCain territory.
So what happened? Historically, debates have an effect only if something happens to crystallize some pre-existing doubt about a candidate. When Mike Dukakis was asked how he would react if his wife was raped, his dispassionate response confirmed the sense that the Democrat didn’t have the fire that Americans sought in a president. Likewise, George Bush’s repeated glances at his watch in a 1992 debate confirmed voter suspicion that he wasn’t engaged.
This time, the combative, dismissive approach that McCain adopted toward Obama may have confirmed fears of many voters that as commander in chief, McCain might choose confrontation in a crisis not because that’s what the situation required, but because that is his nature.
That concern was also the subtext of a question posed to McCain in an interview on “60 Minutes” earlier this month. McCain was asked whether as president he would make it policy to “engage in preemptive war against a country that might pose a threat to the United States —- a country that hasn’t attacked us.”
“If it’s a provable direct threat,” the senator responded. “Suppose that the Iranians had nuclear weapons. And you had a whole lot of other information about Iranian intentions and you could make the case to the American people and to the world, I think it’s obvious that we would have to prevent what we are absolutely certain is a direct threat to the lives of the American people.”
Most Americans, including Obama, would agree with McCain. If we are “absolutely certain” that we face “a direct threat to the lives of the American people,” no U.S. president would hesitate to respond militarily.
The problem is, McCain has already demonstrated that his actual threshhold for war is quite a bit lower than he described to CBS.
In 2002 and early 2003, the American people faced the very dilemma posed to McCain on “60 Minutes.” President Bush and his allies were arguing that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was real and direct, and that if we did not act “the smoking gun might come in the form of a mushroom cloud over an American city.”
In those circumstances, McCain made it clear that he considered Iraq a threat that must be addressed pre-emptively, calling Saddam “a clear and present danger” that could not be ignored.
“In an age of weapons of mass destruction and global terrorists bent on acquiring those weapons, the costs of inaction could well be catastrophic,” McCain warned in a speech on the Senate floor.
However, even at the time Iraq did not pose “a provable direct threat” to the United States, the threshhold for action now cited by McCain. And despite some claims to the contrary, we were far from “absolutely certain” that Saddam posed a direct threat to American lives.
Nonetheless, McCain was avid for military action, to the point that he libeled fellow Americans who disagreed with his stance. He was so eager for war that he claimed Saddam “is using opponents of the war in America to advance his own ends, sowing division within our own ranks.”
McCain’s response to the “60 Minutes” question was also revealing for another reason. He took a question about a theoretical threat and immediately gave it an address, Iran. Both McCain and Obama have said that the military option must remain on the table when dealing with Iran, but McCain’s history suggests he may be too eager to use that option.
With his demeanor Friday night, McCain may have taken a nebulous, nagging doubt about his candidacy and crystallized it into something hard and real.
