Wednesday, May 27, 2009

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Benjamin R. Barber: Joel I. Klein: Educator (right!) Top
In an irony typical of the New York Times' tin ear for democracy, a recent article (May 22) on New York Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein carried the headline "Big Thinking and Radical Dreaming." In a puff piece passing as news, Susan Dominus gave us this choice in thinking about the diktat-obsessed, top-down lawyer-bureaucrat who helped impose Mayor Bloomberg's iron will on the New York school system: Klein must either be a "passionate reformer" or a "driven zealot". How about an imperial ignoramus? A grandstanding bureaucrat? A union-busting bully? Klein advocates "reforms" like compelling kids before they finish fifth grade to visit colleges (you know, so they will understand the joys of higher ed and be motivated to succeed!); like preventing parents from sending their kids to neighborhood primary schools (there's a great way to keep the middle class in the public school system); like empowering principals at the expense of teachers; and like making "remote" education via the web a surrogate for live teachers in the classroom (hey, you can reduce the teacher corps by 30%, Klein boasts, and increase the size of classes at the same time). In this last bureaucrat-speak idea he is aping the social science wisdom of Terry Moe and John Chubb (Chubb runs that wondrous for-profit outfit called Edison Learning). Moe envisions a world in which "kids can work it out on their own" while schools become a "place where they go and have clubs and sports activities and drama," doing all their course work online. I've done remote teaching and it is a far cry (remote indeed) from real teaching. But coincidentally it is a whole lot cheaper since one virtual teacher can instruct hundreds while the rest of the real teachers can join the fast food service industry. Susan Dominus acknowledges in her piece that Klein "can be hard on the people who educate the city's children," but thinks we should give him "credit for holding his tongue most of the time." Truth is, Klein is a perfect clone of a Mayor who seized control of the schools and vowed to put his stamp on them (just as he overturned the two term limit standing in the way of his running again for Mayor later this year). His "big thinking" means bureaucrats and their business-inspired management schemes come first, principals with tough top down controls come second, while teachers and parents come last. Children, the pupils, they don't rate at all, except as the subjects for Klein's "radical dreaming" - which is inspired neither by reformist pedagogy nor democratic inclusion but by the corporate management nightmare of totally controlling the "customers" it pretends to serve. (By the way, I am not sniping from the sanctuary of private school privilege: my daughter graduates next month from a New York public high school and has spent her entire K-12 education in public school).
 
Ahu Ozyurt: Against All Odds: What the World Will See in Sotomayor Top
Call it political, call it anything. President Barack Obama has once again challenged the leadership of all civilized nations by choosing Sonya Sotomayor to the highest court in America. Her incredible life story rings so true and familiar to so many women in this country and in the world. Being a daughter of a single mother, Judge Sotomayor could have easily chosen the safe path to go into teaching jobs, banking industry, professional career. But she jumped into public service and law, a field that even with Affirmative Action you would not get many minority women excited about. A minefield indeed. A place you can get lost or get entangled into gender and identity politics. But Sotomayor not only chose to be a lawyer, she also chose to face the issues that are not-so-nice to her ethnic and racial background. The President is aware of the fact that without such a choice, it may not be possible to push for an comprehensive immigration reform. Judge Mayor symbolizes everything this country wants to see in the child of an immigrant American, someone who defies all odds, someone who is the icon of law and order, a woman who eloquently writes and reads the language of this land. So here is a toast to the little immigrant ladies who push strollers on our streets, who silently come to clean our apartments, and without a word of English somehow we manage to understand each other. They had quite a lot to smile about this morning. After all the work they do, at the end of the day, they have a model for their sons and daughters. No glamour, pure guts and hard work. And here is a challenge to decision makers in Europe and Central America: Let's see if Chancellor Merkel can appoint a Turk to a High Court or even a Ministerial post. Let's see if Prime Minister Erdogan can appoint a secular, Alawite, Kurdish woman to a high office. Let's see if President Sarkozy after all the scandal he dumped on her, can truly stand behind Rachida Dati as a symbol law and justice in Europe. Let's hope they have the guts and courage. More on Supreme Court
 
Norm Ornstein: Congress and the Five-Day Work Week Top
My latest Roll Call column calls for a major change in scheduling: moving to a five-day work week in Washington, Monday to Friday nine to five, with three weeks on and one week off to go back to the district. The current schedule, two or two-and-a-half days in DC each week, exacerbates partisan and ideological conflict and reduces any meaningful deliberation and debate. The full column can be found here: http://www.rollcall.com/issues/54_136/ornstein/35207-1.html
 
Auren Hoffman: Why Hiring is Paradoxically Harder in a Downturn Top
Noise goes up but the quality stays the same. Hiring is always hard. The hardest thing to do at a company is the recruiting and hiring. It was really hard when the economy was doing well. Paradoxically, for certain industries (especially those reliant on innovation such as those in the tech space), it's even harder when times are tough. That's right ... hiring in tough economic times can actually be much harder than when times are good . In a downturn, the amount of resumes from C-Players massively increases while the amount of resumes from A-Players probably remains the same. Never settle First, let's assume you've already bought into the " When Good Isn't Good Enough " philosophy of always trying to hire A-players because they are just so much more productive than B-players (an 'A-Player' by definition is incredibly productive and smart and has that 'it', that rockstar-esque factor that makes everyone want to work with her). That means you won't settle for people who are good but instead hold out for people that are great . Great people -- the A-Players -- are a very different breed from the good (B-Players) and mediocre (C-Players). Great people are more likely to be employed with a company since a great person is often over 3 times as productive as a good person. Joel Spolsky argues in Smart & Gets Things Done that an A-player is anywhere from 5-10 times as productive. Joel looked at coursework data from a Yale computer science class and found that the fastest students finished their workload as much as ten times faster than the slowest students (average was 3-4 times faster). Spolsky, Joel. Smart & Get Things Done. Berkeley, CA: Apress, 2007. p 6. The (Un)Employed A-Player In troubled economic times, anyone can get laid off, but a disproportionate number of layoffs tend to fall on C-players. This is because they are the lowest performing people in a company and there generally are more C-players at a company than any other caliber. Note that this isn't always true, as evidenced with Yahoo!, a company that has recently experienced many layoffs but doesn't have many C-players. In Yahoo!'s case, majority of the lay-offs fell on B-players and even some A-players. Yahoo! is an exception and is an exceptional company -- most large companies, however, are chock-full of C-players. A smart company would (or should) never lay off a great person unless her/his job function is eliminated. For instance, if a smart company had to lay off one of two software engineers with one being great and other being good, it will very likely lay off the good engineer and retain the great one (and might even give the great person a raise). Again, this is the logic that smart companies should follow. Then again, there are many dim-witted companies that lay off their great people for odd reasons and so you'll find some great people out of those laid off. Where to find that A-player Some A-players are less likely to be looking to jump ship during tough times due to a risk adverse profile, security, financial reasons, or other reasons. They are happy where they are and more likely to hunker-down in tough times. On the flipside there are A-players that are more likely to leave. Tough times often paint companies into a corner and force them into maintenance mode rather than continuing to innovate. Great players love to innovate and usually need to innovate. It's usually very hard to keep these type of A-players caged-up and thus this presents a big opportunity for recruiting. For instance, in the past it was really hard to hire great software engineers out of financial behemoths like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan Chase. These companies have outstanding people and pay these people really well (often 50% above the salary at a tech company). Nowadays, even if these people have not been laid off, the great people are going to be leaving in droves. Why? Because in the next two years, it is really doubtful they will be doing anything remotely innovative. Instead they will be maintaining current systems due to the understaffed and underfunded technology departments. No fun there so expect a big exodus out of these companies. It's also worth noting that great people are often first to leave sinking ships. They don't feel they need to stick around for a severance because they are confident they can always get another job. How to deal with the paradox Let's face it, these great, A-Player type people are just really hard to find. Let's say for sake of argument that A-players make up 1% of the population that could do the job, B-players are 19%, and C-players comprise the other 80%. It's uncertain if these percentages are accurate, but there definitely are more C-Players than B-players and more B-players than A-players. Now if people find out you are hiring (through a Craigslist ad, posted on careers page, etc.), it probably means you are going to get a massive influx of resumes from C-players. Many of these resumes will be indistinguishable from those of A-players (it's always hard to distinguish on paper). Which means the amount of noise (aka undesirable hires) will likely increase. Which means more work sifting through these resumes and talking to many more people. It's important to screen for great people in order to turn the volume down on all the noise. Unfortunately, it is really hard to tell the difference between an A-player, B-player, or C-player just from a resume. Which means you need to engage with candidates and therefore you'll have far more candidates to deal with given this economic climate. My guess -- for a standard job announcement -- you'll have three times the number of C-players applying, twice the number of B-players, and the same number of A-players. Wow... your noise level has just massively increased! At Rapleaf for instance, we have a written one-hour technical interview as the first screen for resumes we like. Last year, our pass-rate for the test was 17% ... meaning 17% of the candidates passed the written interview and moved on to a second round (a live chat with a Rapleaf engineer). Today our pass rate is about 6-8%. Our noise level has really increased. One way to decrease the noise level (and thereby increase the amount of quality) is to specifically target candidates rather than to post a job ad. I would suggest targeting a company you think has great people, call into that company, and try convincing the talent to meet with you. I know if I was based in Manhattan and was recruiting software engineers, I'd be calling on the people in the top banks. While not everyone at a top bank is a great player, your ratio of great-to-good is going to go up substantially (assuming they haven't already left). Of course, not every position is harder to hire in this downtown. It is easier to find great people whose industries have been totally decimated by this recession. You're in luck if you are looking to hire investment bankers, corporate lawyers, construction workers, or people in manufacturing. This downturn looks to affect us all for the next couple years, so be sure to fill your company with only A-players and thereby creating your own A-Team. More on Financial Crisis
 
WATCH: Runners Tell Their Stories Top
Whether they began running to get into shape, to fulfill a lifelong dream or simply to have a good time, most runners share this: nothing feels better than crossing the finish line. Here are the stories of both elite competitors and determined beginners. More on Health
 
Obama In Front Of Giant Solar Array (PHOTO) Top
I really enjoy this one -- even more than the one where Obama and Biden looked like they got their feet stuck in solar panels on that roof in Denver. President Barack Obama delivers a speech in front of solar panels at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Wednesday, May 27, 2009. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken) More on Energy
 
Consumer Confidence: Behind Those Happy Numbers Top
The stock market surged Tuesday after a big jump in consumer confidence, despite word of a 19.1 percent drop in housing prices over the past year and a jobless rate likely to surpass that of Europe. Who are those confident consumers, and why are they jumping? Consumer confidence is a number measured by the Conference Board , a nonprofit that bases its data on a survey of 5,000 U.S. households. The confidence measure is based on consumers' answers to five questions on current business and employment conditions and expected conditions six months down the road. Confidence rose from 40.8 to 59.4 in April. The benchmark number for consumer confidence, set in 1985, is 100. The April gains were carried by future expectations, which jumped from 51 to over 72, whereas respondents put current conditions at 28.9, up from 25.5 last month. Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, is skeptical that the sunny expectations index carries much significance. "This jumps all over the place and is almost meaningless," said Baker in an email to the Huffington Post. "This is no doubt being driven by the happy talk in the media pronouncing the recession over." Baker said the current conditions index, which "does reasonably well reflect current consumption patterns," is "still at an extremely low level." In an interview with the Huffington Post, the Conference Board's Lynn Franco confirmed that consumers report "sharp increases in expectations as the recession seems behind them." But Franco cautioned that even though "the worst may be behind us," positive expectations don't mean consumer spending is about to power the economy forward. "Consumers, in spending terms, are still facing a lot of headwind," Franco said. The graph below, provided by the Conference Board, shows how consumers' expectations and assessments of current conditions tend to diverge and fluctuate when the economy hits a trough. The Economic Policy Institute's Larry Mishel told the Huffington Post that bad times will continue, with "high and prolonged unemployment that's going to have a tremendous amount of hurt."
 
Patti Blagojevich Leaves For Costa Rican Jungle Top
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's wife is off to the Costa Rican jungle for a TV reality show. Patti Blagojevich is appearing on NBC's "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here." She's competing because a federal judge barred her husband from going while he faces federal corruption charges. Blagojevich family spokesman Glenn Selig said Wednesday that the show will be challenging for the "big city girl." The show premieres June 1. Others set to appear include actor Stephen Baldwin and "American Idol" contestant Sanjaya Malakar. Patti Blagojevich has said she's appearing on the show because of her family's financial situation. Both she and her husband are out of work. -ASSOCIATED PRESS More on Rod Blagojevich
 
Quinn Tweaks Tax Plan To Court Votes Top
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Gov. Pat Quinn has come up with new version of his proposal to raise income taxes in an effort to win more support from lawmakers. The new version would produce between $3.7 billion and $4 billion for state government, up from the original figure of $3.2 billion. That means legislators would end up with more money to spend on services they support. The tax would produce more money because Quinn is agreeing to scale back tax breaks meant to cushion the blow on some families. Instead of tripling, the personal exemption would climb by only 50 percent. And the Earned Income Tax Credit for poor families would double. It's not clear whether this would be enough of a change to pass a tax increase. -ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
Tom Gregory: America 2009: Hand Sanitizer, Safe Babies, and PROP 8 Top
As a kid I was raised Baptist. At seven, I bought the whole story hook, line and sinker. It sounded great. At death I was promised eternal perfectness -- a world awash with streets paved in gold, eternal life surrounded by those I loved, living in a perfect palace, no need to worry, fret - no disease, no sickness; you know the drill, you get the idea. But even as a child I saw flaws in that paradigm. I asked mom, "If all the streets are paved with gold, won't gold be ... worthless? Then again, won't we get sick of that constant gaudy glare? If money is not the barometer by which society paces us, what will be? What will be the friction that keeps us fighting, striving...living? Mom, won't we all just want to be God? Mom if God so loves - why hell? If he's the boss why did he have to kill his beloved son? Mommy, it seems to me that he could have just forgiven us with the whole gory cross thing? If Adolf Hitler repented and accepted Jesus Christ as his own personal savior, will he be up there too? Just why does God need a building fund? Shouldn't we be spending all the money on the poor? "Get away kid, you're bothering me." In all fairness to my congregation, they were a fine group, the backbone of American ideals. I don't recall any of the right-wing rhetoric that so readily spews from pulpits and Pat Robertson et al today. Just three years ago, my childhood church pastor from New Jersey, Rev. Wesley Evans, visited my home. I had arranged a VIP tour of Hollywood for him, his wife, and my aunt and uncle with whom they were traveling. He was a great guy. If all the churches were like my childhood church, I suspect none of today's right wing fodder would have ever infected law or the White House. I still respect that chapel and its congregants, but something tragic has happened to the American church. They have become a pawn in a game of wicked ridiculousness. Power has been sucked up from the church by a tornado of political and animalist hate that has its eye on gay America. Earlier this month in Ramona California, sixth grader Natalie Jones was censored from giving her a presentation on politician Harvey Milk. She had seen Sean Penn's Academy Award winning performance, which inspired her to share his story with her class. Milk, was of course the FIRST openly gay official to ever be elected to public office in America. The day before Natalie was to give her presentation to her class (she had gotten a score of 98% on the written report), she was called into the principal's office and told she could not share his story with the class. To quote the original article written by the ACLU: When Bonnie Jones spoke with the superintendent about the presentation, he said Natalie couldn't give her presentation because of a district board policy on "Family Life/Sex Education." A few days later, the school sent letters to parents of students in the class, explaining that her presentation would be held during a lunch recess on May 8, and that students could only attend if they had parental permission.

"The principal and superintendent grossly misinterpreted school policy. They illegally censored student speech protected by the First Amendment and the California Education Code," said David Blair-Loy, Legal Director of the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties. "Writing or talking about a gay historical figure who advocated for equal rights for LGBT Californians is in no way the same thing as talking about sex, and school officials should not pretend otherwise."

The Ramona Unified School District policy on "Family Life/Sex Education" reads in part:

"Parents/guardians shall be notified in writing about any instruction in which human reproductive organs and their functions, processes, or sexually transmitted diseases are described, illustrated, or discussed. In addition, before any instruction on family life, human sexuality, AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases is given, the parent/guardian shall be provided with written notice explaining that the instruction will be given..."

"Schools that act as if any mention of the existence of gay people is something too controversial or 'sensitive' to discuss are doing a disservice to their students," said Elizabeth Gill, a staff attorney with the ACLU's national LGBT Project. "This school completely overstepped its bounds in trying to silence Natalie Jones by shunting her presentation off to a lunch recess time and misusing a school policy to justify requiring parental permission to see it."
 I am tired of all this anti same sex silliness. If a superior being disagrees with anyone's lifestyle based upon sexual orientation, let him/her/it deal with the issue after death. I suspect many religious people feel that their God is watching them, and if they don't fight against homosexuals (Pat Robertson called them "self-absorbed hedonists") they too might be damned to hell. I realized years ago that the first big mistake was allowing churches to broadcast on television. Like Wal-Mart, mega churches have taken money from local communities that used to go to neighborhood churches. They've funneled funds into a few hands that use it in vile ways. Imagine if the money funneled into Prop 8 had gone towards feeding the poor, housing the homeless, and helping the man or woman next-door who has lost his job. My partner and I gave more money to PROP 8 than anyone else (over 1.1 million). We have firmly decided no more. Through our foundation and through our individual giving I would rather give it to the animal shelters, gun buy-back programs, mass transit issues, or more hands-on LGBT issues. America has run on unwarranted fear for far too long. Our parents and grandparents lived in a world without hand sanitizer; they washed their diapers instead of throwing them away, and only bought homes mortgages if they could afford them. Today I read that we are supposed to paint our roofs white to combat global warming. It seems to me the real answer to environmental issues is birth control, but unlike the "zero population growth" movement of the early seventies, you just can't talk about national birth control today. I'd never want to go back to the America of yesterday. The "good old days" never really existed. But America survived pretty well on Ivory soap, an errant sneeze in the face, and the letting the two guys who lived together next door alone. God Bless America - but my God is each one of us. More on Sean Penn
 
Blaise Zerega: Lessig: To Overturn Prop 8, Avoid the Courts Top
California's Supreme Court upheld today Proposition 8, which bans same sex marriage. At the same time, the Court recognized those same sex marriages performed before the ban was approved. So, the unions of some 18,000 gay and lesbian couples from last summer are legal, but if you're gay or lesbian and want to take vows with your partner this summer, forget it. That would be illegal. Talk about a mess. What was the Court thinking? It's bad enough that gay and lesbian couples are treated as a different class of citizenry. Now, there are effectively two classes within that class. To call it a compromise is a cop-out. A form of separate but equal is more like it. And what does this situation say about our democracy? What have our courts come to if civil rights are determined by popular vote? Ever prescient, Stanford Professor Larry Lessig argued months ago that turning to the judiciary to defeat Proposition 8 would be folly. I am sorry to say he was correct. Watch the full program and a series about same sex marriage at FORA.tv. More on Gay Marriage
 
Drew Peterson Calls Mancow From Jail, Jokes About Conjugal Visit Contest Top
CHICAGO — Former police officer Drew Peterson cracked jokes from jail on a Chicago radio show that he called collect. He called WLS Radio's Mancow & Cassidy show on Wednesday and offered snippets of a comedy routine he's working on. Peterson once proposed a "Win a Date With Drew" contest and offered a jail version called "Win a Conjugal Visit with Drew." He also joked about prison showers, his legal fees and his "bling" handcuffs, saying humor is how he deals with stress. Peterson is charged with first-degree murder in the 2004 death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. He's also a suspect in the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson. He denies wrongdoing.
 
Tamra Davis: Tamra Davis Cooking Show: Pesto Shrek Top
Pesto is such a great standard. It's so simple to make and always tastes good. The color is fantastic, I can usually connect it with some cartoon character and the kids will eat it. Sometimes it's Shrek Pasta, the other night it was the Hulk Spaghetti. You could also call it Little Mermaid Spaghetti. I make up names for their food all the time to help make it more familiar. On a vacation in Kauai, we invited some friends over for dinner. I didn't want to spend too much time in the kitchen but I also wanted to serve my guests something delicious. My friends were also coming over with their kids so what ever I made I knew that I was going to have to have a kids dinner too. I made a pesto pasta for the kids and then grilled some fish and added that to the adults plate. I covered the fish and the pasta with this delicious pesto sauce and sprinkled on some parmesan and pine nuts. It was delicious. Obviously, you can also serve the fish to your kids too! This is a recipe from my cookbook that is a "Combo Meal". A recipe that starts out as a kids meal and then with a few added ingredients becomes the adult dinner. This is a wonderful dinner that's easy to pull off with guests and kids. I also served a Kauai inspired salad as a first course with mixed greens, local goat cheese, mango and toasted macadamia nuts. Please visit my website for more videos and recipes TamraDavisCookingShow.com . Grilled Fish with Pesto aka "Shrek Pasta" (for 4) "Shrek Pasta" 1 16 ounce package of spaghetti 4 cloves of garlic 2 cups of washed basil leaves 1 cup of toasted pine nuts 1/4 - ½ a cup of olive oil ½ a cup of vegetable stock or water Salt and pepper 1/4 - ½ a cup of parmesan cheese (optional) Toasted pine nuts Parmesan cheese Boil water and cook your pasta. Meanwhile toast the pine nuts in a frying pan with a pinch of salt. When they turn lightly brown put them in a blender with the garlic, basil, parmesan cheese and olive oil. Add a ¼ cup of vegetable stock or water and blend until smooth. You may need to add a bit more stock or water to get the consistency that you like. Add plenty of salt and pepper to taste. Serve topped with toasted pine nuts, a basil leaf and parmesan cheese. Grilled Fish with Pesto Sauce (for 4) Grill or broil 4 6 ounce filets of fish (halibut, cod, salmon, seabass) I try and use the freshest and most ecologically sustainable fish when I cook with fish. Lightly brush four 6-ounce filets of fish (halibut, cod, salmon, or sea bass) with olive oil, lemon and salt. Grill for three to five minutes per side depending on how rare you like it. You can also broil the seasoned fish on a foil lined baking sheet in the oven on broil for 7-10 minutes. Don't over cook your fish. Please. Place the fish on top of a plate of spaghetti. Top with the Shrek Pesto Sauce, some toasted pine nuts, grated parmesan and shredded basil. Excellent, and an easy dinner to pull off for guests and kids. More on Travel
 
Todd Palin Offered Bristol A Car To Dump Levi Top
In an yet-to-be released interview with GQ , Levi Johnston, the ex-boyfriend of teen mom Bristol Palin (and father to her son, Tripp) reveals even more details about the dynamics of his relationship with Bristol and her family. Johnston told GQ that Todd Palin, on multiple occasions, offered to buy his daughter a car if she would break up him. Since their split in March the two have separately given numerous media interviews, in which various divides have emerged. Johnston has declared that abstinence is unrealistic and been fairly frank in discussing the couple's love life. His family has also gone public with complaints that the Palins do not allow them enough contact with the baby . Bristol, on the other hand, after initially questioning abstinence has become an ardent campaigner for the cause but reluctant to discuss her own romantic past. According to New York Magazine , who snagged a preview of the article, Johnston said he has no plans to get back together with Bristol. Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter!
 
Dan Gould: Stress Busting Parisian Cafes Offer Massage as a Side Order Top
This article originally appeared on Pictured above is the No Stress Cafe , which has their massage chair right in the center of the dining room. To read more, please visit PSFK.com
 
Dick Cheney: Powell Is Welcome In GOP (VIDEO) Top
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has shown little affection recently for his old Bush Administration colleague Colin Powell. Asked to choose between the one-time Secretary of State and talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, Cheney said he'd side with Rush. "If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh," Cheney said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "My take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still a Republican." But now, the acerbic ex-official is softening his stance. In an interview with CNBC's Larry Kudlow, Cheney said Powell is welcome back into the party and that Republicans would be "happy to have him." KUDLOW: ... You kind of took a shot at General Colin Powell the other day, said you didn't know he was still a member of the Republican Party. He responded to you by saying that you were mistaken. He is a member of the Republican Party, and he regards himself a, quote, "Jack Kemp Republican," end quote. Could you react to what Mr. Powell is saying? Mr. CHENEY: Well, we're happy to have General Powell in the Republican Party. I was asked a question about a dispute he was having, I think, with Rush Limbaugh, and I expressed the consent, the notion I had that he had already left since he endorsed Barack Obama for president. But I meant no offense to my former colleague. I wasn't seeking to rearrange his political identity. KUDLOW: So you welcome him back into the party. Mr. CHENEY: We're in the mode where we welcome everybody to the party. What I don't want to do, in the course of trying to expand the overall size of the Republican Party and expand our base, is to take away from basic fundamental principles. I think it's very important that we remind people out around the country what it is that we stand for, that we do believe in a strong national defense, in low taxes and limited government; and giving up on those principles, in order to try to appeal to people who are otherwise going to vote Democratic, seems to me is a--would be a fundamental defeat for those of us who are essentially conservative, who've been long-time supporters of the Republican Party. On the subject of party identification, Cheney was also asked if he thought President Obama was "a socialist or a socialist-light." He responded, "Well, I agree with the criticism without using the labels. I don't want to get into trying to label President Obama. He's our president. At this point, he's the only one we've got. He won the election, and he obviously is entitled to pursue those policies that he wants to pursue." Watch a preview of the interview, which airs at 7 P.M. Eastern Time on CNBC: More on Colin Powell
 
Car Czar Steven Rattner Held Shares In Investment Fund Run By Chrysler's Majority Owner Top
Steven Rattner, head of the U.S. Treasury Department's automotive team, has a net worth of at least $188 million and held shares in an investment fund run by the majority owner of Chrysler LLC, according to his financial- disclosure statement.
 
Jennifer M. Granholm: Michigan Will Lead the Green Industrial Revolution Top
The battle against global climate change was kicked into a new gear this month, and Michigan is leading the charge. That's right: Michigan. The so-called "rust belt" state that has been putting cars, trucks, and SUV's on the road for over 100 years is putting the pedal to the metal on making the U.S. less reliant on fossil fuels. As Governor of the state that has been ground zero for the nation's economic crisis, I was proud to stand with leaders of the UAW and ten automakers as President Obama announced a truly historic, aggressive national agreement to lower greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles. Out with the old gas guzzlers of the past. Out with the old thinking of the past. Out with the old politics of the past. Out with the old rust belt. May was the first month of the New: new technology, new ideas, and a new era of cooperation that will purposefully drive Michigan and America into the new clean-energy future. Michigan's Big Three automakers, the UAW, Michigan's world class engineers -- they are working together to reduce more greenhouse gas emissions than ever before in this country's history. It's not Silicon Valley. It's not Route 128. It's Motown that is making a more significant impact on global climate change than any other place in America. In addition to the new fuel efficiency standards, May was also the month that five innovative new Michigan companies submitted their applications to the Department of Energy to receive federal funding to design and build the advanced batteries that will power the electric vehicle of the future. Their applications are backed by $700 million in state incentives. In Michigan, we're not only redesigning the current generation of vehicles to be more fuel efficient, but as the world's epicenter for automotive research and design, we're literally redesigning the entire notion of the automobile. The Chevy Volt will be the first ever mass produced car designed around a lithium ion battery pack rather than an internal combustion engine. Ford is preparing for the introduction of a full line of new hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles, and just announced their first fully electric vehicle will be made at an efficient Michigan factory. Chrysler is also electrifying its product lines, with announcements to come. The key challenge we need to overcome to make the transition to an electric vehicle fleet is perfecting the battery. To meet that challenge, world class companies like A123 Systems , Johnson-Controls-Saft , KD Advanced Battery Group , LG Chem , and Sakti3 are partnering with Michigan's Big 3 automakers and Michigan's Dow Chemical to put the world's best battery engineers to the work on solutions. As the Arsenal of Democracy during World War II, Michigan was called upon in a time of crisis to transition our auto manufacturing base to tanks and B-1 bombers. Today, Michigan will use our manufacturing know-how and infrastructure to make green energy products -- fuel efficient cars, advanced batteries for electric cars, wind turbines, solar panels, smart grid technology, carbon-fiber materials, energy efficient building materials, and more. We have reinvented ourselves before, and we will do it again. Hard work is in our DNA, and no state is hungrier than Michigan. Some doubters on this website have advocated "pulling the plug on Detroit." Instead, I invite you to plug in to the power of American ingenuity and American transformation. Plug in the new electric car, made in America, by your neighbors in communities across the country. In Michigan, we're plugging in to a new paradigm. We are reimagining and remaking the American automobile, the American industrial sector, and our nation's energy future. Watch -- Michigan will lead a green industrial revolution. I invite you to watch us, encourage us, and join us. And the doubters? I encourage them to just try and keep up.
 
Progressive Ideas Network: Have We Rejoined the World? Top
Alexandra Spieldoch, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy In some ways, it is difficult to critique the new administration without feeling like one is blowing the wind out of the sails at a time when the "global" boat needs support to stay afloat. The Bush administration's unilateral approach to foreign relations isolated the U.S. and made it difficult to work with the global community to solve some of our most difficult challenges. To assess the Obama administration's efforts to re-engage with the world, we will consider four areas where global leadership is urgently needed: reinvigorating the United Nations, climate change, the food crisis, and trade. One of President Obama's first actions was to appoint a U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and to give her cabinet-level status. The U.S. also announced that it would seek a seat on the Human Rights Council. Both of these moves are a direct statement to the world that the U.S. is back at the U.N. and ready for global dialogue. These are important symbolic gestures. Yet the administration has not pushed for the ratification of any important treaties or conventions, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, that most other countries around the world have approved. The Obama administration has made great strides by publicly recognizing that a climate change agreement is needed. However, this isn't enough. As climate talks proceed, the U.N. Secretary General has indicated that the world cannot wait for the United States. The U.S., as the largest emitter in the world, must act in bold ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But the administration has not been forceful enough at the domestic and international levels in pushing for an approach that sets a real cap for polluters, resulting in real greenhouse gas reductions. The administration has yet to sign the Kyoto Treaty, and it is still sorting out its policy agenda in Congress. So far, its proposed emissions cuts are lower than what other countries are promising. The U.S. has made no commitments to provide funds to least-developed, small island, and land-locked developing nations--countries that are urgently preparing for climate change. In its response to the food crisis, the administration pledged to double its long-term agricultural development assistance to more than $1 billion this year alone. Yet much of this money is earmarked for new technology to increase food production in developing countries instead of addressing the real problems: the need for more access to food and investment in sustainable production methods. President Obama has not come out in support of food reserves--either in the form of a strategic grain reserve in the U.S. or global and regional reserves to address hunger. Meanwhile, the crisis grows. The U.S. trade agenda is mostly stalled so President Obama is slightly off the hook--for now--although at this point, his trade agenda appears not much different than that of the Bush administration. During the election campaign, Obama expressed support for the renegotiation of NAFTA but has since backed away from this position. He is also working to expand so-called free trade by finalizing the Panama and Colombia FTAs, as well as completing the controversial Doha talks at the World Trade Organization. In a nutshell, one of the more encouraging aspects of the new administration is that it acknowledges the need to work together at the global level on a variety of fronts. However, beyond the rhetoric, the Obama administration has much work to do to change its relationship with the world. This is the crux of the matter. Alexandra Spieldoch is the director of the Trade and Global Governance program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy , and a contributor to the book Thinking Big .
 
Russell Simmons: It Is Not A Matter of If, But Only A Matter of When Top
It is remarkable that it took only one day for our beautiful country to show its greatest potential and its greatest challenge. And that day was Tuesday. In the morning, I was inspired by the President's nomination of Justice Sonia Sotomayor for a seat on the Supreme Court. Yet, in the afternoon I was deeply saddened by the decision made by the California Supreme Court upholding Proposition 8. It pains me that we have come to a point in this country where we use the ballot box to address the civil rights of our people. If President Johnson had to take a vote, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would not have passed. If Congress took a vote in 1920, women may still not have the right to vote today. And if President Lincoln went to the polls, blacks would definitely have endured many more years of slavery. We trusted our government to make the right decision and protect the minority, and yesterday we, as a nation, failed. Unfortunately, most of the arguments against these monumental advancements of our country's history have been deeply rooted in religion; and in my opinion the misuse of religion. Let's remove religion from this discussion, and focus on the greatest gift religion has given all of us, the ability to love. And as an African-American, I urge my own people to take a deep look at our own struggles and not wish them upon anyone else. Simply, civil rights for all is about being connected as humans, united, tolerant, loving and brave. We have come such a long way in this country. Let's us not stop now. Vermont and Maine have done the right thing by legalizing same sex marriage, and I am extremely supportive of my own Governor, David Paterson, to follow suit in New York. In my heart, I know that marriage equality for every human being isn't a question of if, but only a matter of when. I ask those who feel that giving freedom to others somehow binds you, to please take a good look at what you are standing behind.  It is only through opening your hearts will you be able to see that by promoting freedom for all, you are unchaining yourself.  I guess I'm an optimist. I have faith in people and our government ultimately to do the right thing. And to my brothers and sisters in California, I'm there with you every step of the way until that day comes... More on Gay Marriage
 
Putin's First Column: 'Why It's Hard To Fire People' Top
By Shaun Walker in Moscow | The Independent In the past year he's been painting pictures, singing songs, and demonstrating his expert judo moves. This week Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will complete a clean sweep of the artistic disciplines after turning his hand to writing. Mr Putin's first ever column for a Russian media outlet will be published on Friday, entitled "Why it's hard to fire people". But while the previous efforts, along with his skiing, tiger-shooting and bare-chested fishing expeditions, have been propaganda for personal abilities, the article seems to have a more serious point. Written for a niche monthly magazine, Russian Pioneer, it reads as the first admission by Mr Putin of the scale of infighting that raged in the Kremlin during his eight years as president. "Conflicts within a team, especially within a big team, always arise," writes Mr Putin, in extracts leaked to a Russian news agency. "This happens every minute, every second - simply because between people there are always clashes of interest." Most analysts believe that during Mr Putin's presidency, a vicious battle was fought for power and influence between liberals and hardliners within and around the Kremlin. This continues today as the relatively liberal President Dmitry Medvedev and his close associates appear to be fighting off challenges from a hardline group of conservative former KGB officers. Mr Putin is sometimes lumped in with the latter group, but many analysts suggest that he actually played a delicate balancing act to stop the two groups from descending into all-out war. The scuffles are rarely aired in public and Mr Putin himself has not made direct reference to them before. But now he seems to confirm the most radical of interpretations. "I can say honestly that while I was president, if I hadn't interfered in certain situations, in Russia there would long ago ceased to have been a government." The magazine's editor Andrei Kolesnikov said he had not had to make any corrections as the article was written in excellent Russian, albeit with Mr Putin's famous idiosyncratic expressions in abundance. For any corporate hotshots looking for tips on how to get rid of underachieving employees in times of economic crisis, the article lays out the "Putin method" of firing, which - on paper at least - sounds surprisingly humane. "Sometimes from outside it seems like someone should simply be swept aside with a broom," writes Mr Putin. "But I can assure you that it's not always like this. You should never bad-mouth someone behind their back, and it's impermissible to fire somebody and toss them aside just because somebody has told you something bad about them." Mr Putin also claims that he always gives people the right to fight their corner. "In contrast to previous, Soviet rulers, I always do it personally. I usually call the person into my office, look them in the eye, and say: 'There are concrete complaints. If you think this isn't true, then please, you can fight against it; argue your case'." Read more from The Independent Get HuffPost World On Facebook and Twitter! More on Russia
 
James P. Hoffa: Veteran's Deserve Free Choice Too Top
A corporate front group that's trying to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act is now using a Memorial Day message against the bill. The anti-union group, called the Workplace Fairness Institute, put out a radio actuality implying that unions would take away rights for which veterans fought. Try to tell that to a Teamster veteran. John Padula was a sergeant in the U.S. Army, and his father was a soldier who fought in World War II. Padula says if a veteran can join the army by signing a piece of paper, he should have the right to sign a card to join a union. Watch the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HBecn20-hQ
 
Michael Rowe: No More Mr. Nice Gay Top
"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression." -- Thomas Jefferson As hard as I try to find another way to say this, yesterday's California Supreme Court decision makes this unattractive concept abundantly clear: gays and lesbians are now the only minority in America against whom discrimination is not only legal, but in many cases, encouraged. California has become the first state in U.S. history to amend its constitution to deprive a minority of a right that they had been legally granted. Now, with both the courts and the legislature unwilling to defend their rights, California's LGBT population must return to the people who consider them unequal citizens, and try to convince them that they're worthy of equal protections under the law. If the irony of this decision being handed down on the day Barack Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court wasn't so pernicious, there might be room for levity. Alas there is not. For years, and with the best of intentions, gay activists have been reluctant to call the struggle for full and equal rights under the law what is actually is: the defining civil rights battle of our era. Sensitive to the feelings of other minority civil rights activists and historians, and often accused of "appropriating the civil rights movement" (as though there were a limited number of civil rights battles to go around) gays and lesbians have hesitated to equate the struggle for gay rights with the struggle with African American civil rights in the 1960's in spite of the undeniable parallels. "Loving vs. Virginia," the landmark case that ended the ban on interracial marriage, is the most obvious parallel, and the most germane to the discussion at hand. In 1967, 70% of Americans opposed interracial marriage, and the repeal of its ban was not put to the public for obvious reasons. Last night on Larry King Live , radio talk show host Larry Prager bumbled his way through an earnest defense of Proposition 8, positing the nightmare scenario (to him, at least) of little girls being asked by their friends if they'd rather marry a girl or a boy. When King pointed out that the same justification Prager was using to support Proposition 8 had been used in the past against interracial marriage, Prager puffed up like a male wild turkey in the forest bent on intimidation. "Sex and race are not the same thing," he boomed. "A black man and a white man are the same human being, but a man and a woman are not the same human being." Huh? "That's why we have Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts," went on earnestly. "Not Black Scouts and White Scouts." He went on to explain that married women were leaving their husbands in droves for lesbian relationships because "sexuality is fluid." What this had to do with legalizing gay marriage remains a mystery (not to mention the suggestion that if the bonds of heterosexual marriage aren't strong enough to contain these sleeper cells of proto-lesbians, perhaps the problem is straight marriage, not gay marriage.) While it seems amazing that Prager's comments couldn't have sounded as insipid to him as they did to anyone with a basic grasp of language (let alone history) he perfectly articulated the incoherence of reality-free, emotion-based arguments against equal marriage. King reminded Prager that it did in fact include segregated Scouts. It also included the pre-1948 segregation within the U.S. army, which Harry Truman ended by executive order, not a public vote. Again, the arguments against allowing black soldiers to live and serve alongside their white counterparts are disturbingly similar to those used to expel gay and lesbian soldiers. History has validated Truman's courage in the same way it's waiting to validate Obama's. Today, of course, the thought of putting the civil rights of any racial, religious, or cultural minority up to a majority vote is abhorrent. Unless of course it's the LGBT population, at which point the "debate" suddenly becomes about "religious beliefs" and "lifestyle choices." At that moment, all the prevailing scientific facts about sexual orientation being neither a choice nor a malady goes out the window, and the data from countries where equal marriage is already a reality that has had no negative impact on traditional marriage, or society takes a backseat to religious superstition and cultural prejudices. The arguments that the struggle for equal marriage isn't equivalent to the struggle for interracial marriage in 1967 fall flat at the outset when opponents assert that because interracial marriage involved heterosexuals, banning it was "illogical." It neglects the very real fact that opposition to interracial marriage in 1967 was based on the same reflexive revulsion the opponents of gay marriage feel. Like interracial marriage in its day, gay marriage today is perceived as equally "unnatural," and produces a similar "ick factor" that has nothing whatsoever to do with facts or legitimate arguments. The end result was, and is, the same: that the personal bigotry of a majority deleteriously shapes the reality of a minority, and for no reason other than that it can. It's too obvious to point out that "God's word," the penultimate fallback position for those who cannot logically back up any of their arguments against allowing equal legal civil marriage for gays and lesbians, was used to similar effect in support of marital segregation prior to 1967 as well. Since God is presumably in His heaven (or else sitting on a cloud ten miles above Florida, controlling the weather and blessing America) and remarkably silent on the issue, American evangelicals have stepped up to the plate to speak in loco parentis on His behalf, just as they did in 1967 and before. It may finally be time to admit that while the circumstances are significantly different, each generation brings its own civil rights battle to the field, and each defines its era. The good liberal guilt many people feel about stating this---clearly and unambiguously---is perhaps a luxury we can no longer afford. It's time for right-thinking people across the ethnic and cultural divides, activists and non-activists alike, to see beyond their own religious and cultural prejudices and make common cause with the movement for marriage equality and the repeal of the ban on gays in the military in the name of doing the right thing by their fellow man. If that means church members standing up to the purveyors of prejudice in every ethnic and cultural community, so be it. There is more than enough history of oppression to go around, and while each manifestation of that history is different, the motivation behind the oppression is startlingly consistent, as are the effects on its people, including its children. It's time for people to recognize that the same tools they are using to wound and hinder the progress of equal rights for LGBT Americans have been used, in many cases, to great effect, throughout U.S. history against other minorities. It's time that the full rights of every American be fully enshrined and protected, and that the battle for those rights acknowledged as this generation's defining civil rights battle. In 1965, two years before Loving vs. Virginia, Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol and paraphrased 19th century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker. "The arc of the moral universe is long," Dr. King said, "but it bends towards justice." The circumstances and manifestation of justice may change, from decade to decade, but the principles of justice remain inviolable. Our children are watching, and history is a harsh judge. More on Gay Marriage
 
Eric Ehrmann: How Sweet It Is... Brazil's Sugar Ethanol Fuels China's Recovery Top
China has made a $10 billion investment in energy giant Petrobras strengthening Brazil's efforts toward sustainability and putting sugar based ethanol in the center of the geopolitical arena. Using its own technology and just 1% of its arable land, Brazil efficiently produced 6.57 billion gallons of sugar ethanol last statistical year, roughly half the reported annual oil production of Iraq. Ironically, China's investment in Petrobras would buy about seven weeks worth of the US presence that protects the oil business in Iraq. Brazil could double ethanol production with the right market conditions and if a couple former presidents, now powerful senators, push the government to expand production in Brazil's low income northern states. Ethanol trade has helped make China Brazil's top trade partner, replacing Uncle Sam, who had been top dog ever since Herbert Hoover was in the White House. Unlike the US, Brazil runs a favorable trade balance with China and will continue to do so as China rebounds from the crisis. Opportunities for expanding US-Brazil trade, meanwhile, are limited by the 54 cents per gallon predatory tariff Washington slaps on sugar based ethanol which president Barack Obama voted for as a senator to gain support from agribusiness and Corn Belt farmers in his quest for the White House. Washington has shown its displeasure with China's growing footprint in South America. A rebuke from secretary of State Hillary Clinton is a big flip-flop from her days as a Wal-Mart board member. And World Bank president Robert Zoellick, author of the Dubya Bush administration China policy while at State, warned Brazil could have problems getting credit if it continues working with Beijing. For its part, Brazil just made a $13 billion contribution to the International Monetary Fund so that other nations hit by the crisis can go to the lending window and obtain funds to grow. Dollar diplomacy from Zoellick, streaming on the internet and in newspapers in Brazil, is not playing well. Energy independence is part of the Brazilian national identity and will not fall victim to an obsolete Monroe Doctrine paradigm being invoked by a Bush administration retainer. It also provides grist for the anti-American propaganda machines of Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez and the Castro half-brothers in Cuba. Interests in both hemispheres would be better served if Washington shined the public diplomacy lovelight on the Kremlin's new military cooperation agreement with Venezuela that counterpoises the US presence in Colombia. The big back to the future package features all the trappings of the Cold War deals the Soviets cut with Cuba, Somalia, South Yemen and Syria and represents a potential threat to North-South relations and trade logistics. Brazil continues to follow its own geopolitical agenda with a soft diplomatic tone. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has just returned from meetings in Riyadh with Saudi King Abdullah and the Gulf Cooperation Council that were characterized as "strategic" by his spokesperson, Marcelo Baumbach. With a seat on the UN Security Council and a Middle Eastern community three times larger than the population of Lebanon, Brazil can provide balance to peacekeeping and nation building in a region that may soon face a smaller US presence. Energy independence gained through the biofuels program provided Brasilia with the impetus to turn down an OPEC offer floated by rogue members Ahmadinejad of Iran and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Concerned about mounting opposition in his reelection bid next month the Iranian leader postponed a high profile trade mission to Venezuela, Brazil and Ecuador. And in a move that supports US non-proliferation goals, Lula's government backed away from a potentially lucrative Moscow brokered deal to develop nuclear technology transfer between between Iran, Brazil and Russia that could threaten Israel. Washington would have less motivation to go off on Brazil and China if the US economy put some big points on the board. But recovery you can believe in is still waiting for green lights on Pennsylvania Avenue and K Street. Caterpillar CEO Jim Owens, a member of Obama's Economic Recovery Board, is the only outspoken critic of the president's go slow approach and has given high marks to China's fast acting plan. Workers are returning to their jobs at Cat's big plants in Peoria, and in Brazil, where heavy equipment used to harvest sugar for ethanol is manufactured. Beyond the blogs, tweets and spinrooms the crisis has upset the three dimensional chessboard of global capital markets, central bank support mechanisms and energy alliances. Brazil is picking up the pieces and restructuring its economy already knowing how to do more with less, and prefers recovery solutions that nation build from the bottom up. But in the US the high impact New Deal approach that creates infrastructure and jobs to empower the working poor and average American families isn't happening. As the world waits, team Obama seems to be all about preserving what's left of the middle class, keeping big oil big with some perks for sustainability and greenwashing, and top down solutions offered by US high tech companies who have a penchant for sending jobs abroad. Brazil going all in with the China card to secure energy independence is a reminder that nations now need to defend their lifestyles as much as their economies. And Washington's use of streaming diplomacy to call out both nations projects neither trust nor leadership in a changing world that clamors for both. Shift happens and right now the global economy is outpacing America's efforts to redefine itself. . More on Brazil
 
Michel Kilo: Syrian Dissident Writer Freed From Prison Top
Syrian writer and pro-democracy campaigner Michel Kilo has been released from prison after serving a three-year sentence. More on Syria
 
Mitchell Bard: Why Do So Many Republicans Hate America? Top
On Sunday, as I sat watching former House speaker Newt Gingrich unabashedly endorse the politics of fear on Meet the Press , ("I think people should be afraid"), I couldn't help wonder why so many Republicans hate America so much. Don't get me wrong. I know Republicans think they love America. They talk a lot about how much they love America. And they were quick to question the patriotism of anyone who opposed the Bush administration's policies after the 9/11 attacks. But do they? Yes, I know, I'm being a wise guy to make a point. But when Gingrich talks, it seems like he opposes the basic principals of freedom and due process that for centuries have defined what it means to be an American. Gingrich, after forecasting doom if Guantanamo is closed down (Terrorists will recruit in our prisons!), even defended torture and Guantanamo by saying, "[W]hat's your highest priority? Is it to defend America and protect American lives, or is it to find some way to defend terrorists and to get terrorists involved in the criminal justice system?", adding that "only" three targets were tortured. (As Keith Olbermann asked last night , is only committing three crimes, hundreds of times, a defense to those crimes?) Gingrich defended the Bush policies in these words: "And so they did everything for seven and a half years to--and they have a very simple principle: If you're in doubt, do what it takes to help America survive every time. So they consistently fell down on the side of being very tough about national security, being very tough with specific terrorists." He also explained his thought process: "The question is, is the most important thing to us today to find some kind of civil--American Civil Liberties Union model of making sure that we never offend terrorists, or is the model for us today to say to the CIA and others, 'Do everything you can to protect America....'" But here's the thing: Gingrich talks about defending America, but he and his pro-Guantanamo, pro-torture crew are not defending America, at least as it has been identified by presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan to even George W. Bush. In fact, the America that we have defended from World War II through W.'s administration seems to be something Gingrich, Dick Cheney and those that agree with them feel comfortable disposing of. Every U.S. conflict of the 20th century has been explained as some variation of freedom fighting tyranny. That quality, it was said, is what made America special. We had a free society, with a democratically elected government that followed the laws of the land. We bragged about the lack of succession challenges when Richard Nixon resigned, noting that even though Gerald Ford had never been elected president or vice president by the American people, his legitimacy was never questioned, since his ascension to office followed the process set out in our laws. World War II was a battle between democracy and fascism. The Cold War was about freedom versus Communist repression. Even in the 21st century, Bush spoke a lot about freedom. One of the 1,876 justifications (I may be exaggerating a tad) offered by Bush for the Iraq war after no weapons of mass destruction were found was to provide Iraqis with democracy and freedom. Iraq was to be a beacon of freedom, Bush liked to tell us. He said the terrorists hated us for our freedoms. But those freedoms seem irrelevant to Gingrich and Cheney, at least with regards to torture and Guantanamo. Republicans deify Ronald Reagan for standing in West Berlin and saying, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." But Reagan wasn't talking about lousy architecture. Rather, he was saying that on one side of the wall lived the good guys who enjoyed democratic freedoms, and on the other side resided people who had no freedom and lived under the oppression of the bad guys, the Communists. It was the guys in the East that did things, like, say, torturing people and holding them without charging them, while such atrocities would never go on in the West. But what if the governments on both sides of the wall tortured people and held suspects without trial? What then? Would Reagan's words have meant anything? That is the very question facing Gingrich and Cheney now. If we torture and hold suspects without trial, where is our moral high ground? Can we torture and be Reagan's good guys? What are we fighting for? I thought the whole point of the war on terror is to defend the American way of life. But if we surrender our values to fight the war, to use a popular saw, haven't the terrorists won? It seems to me that the Cheney/Gingrich crowd have no interest in protecting this America, the America of freedom and due process. Rather, they want to protect America as one side of a conflict, without regard to the very values that they purport to be fighting for. It's as if they've reduced defending America to rooting for a sports team, where you just want your club to win. So when Gingrich says, "Do everything you can to protect America," or, "Is it to defend America and protect American lives, or is it to find some way to defend terrorists and to get terrorists involved in the criminal justice system?", he is missing the point completely. If we do everything we can to protect America, including discarding the freedom and due process that is at the heart of American values, what are we protecting? Of course, it doesn't have to be a choice. As President Obama has said, we don't have to choose between our values and our security. And as Sen. Dick Durbin noted on the same episode of Meet the Press , allowing fear to drive policy is no way to govern. He said: "[I]f you, if you step back and take a look at history for a moment, you will find the message we just heard from Mr. Gingrich, from Vice President Cheney and Mr. Rush Limbaugh to be the same, it's a message of fear: 'Be afraid, be very afraid.' And to say that this president is not doing everything in his power to keep America safe is just as irresponsible as anything I've ever heard said on your program." Durbin went on to say: "America cowering in fear is not going to be a strong nation. I disagree with Mr. Gingrich. We can understand the threat, we can deal with it rationally, we can be strong and we will be safe with President Obama. But this notion that fear is going to guide us is what brought us to the notion of weapons of mass destruction and this war in Iraq and all that it has cost us. You know, Vice President Cheney said the other day without hesitation, 'I'd do everything all over again.' He hasn't learned any lesson from history." And our entire criminal justice system is built on the principal of suspects being innocent until proven guilty. Why is it so unreasonable to ask that these terrorists actually be proven to be terrorists, in some way that respects the tradition of our laws? It seems that the major impediment to trials is that the Bush administration's torture and other practices have rendered the government's cases harder to prove. Nobody, not President Obama and certainly not me, is arguing that hardened terrorists be released so that they can go out and do damage to Americans. But there is a huge gap from that idea to holding individuals with nothing more than a "trust me, they're bad guys" from the government. If we really are a nation of freedom, we can find a way to give these terrorists basic rights to contest their guilt, while still keeping them from harming us. What really bugs me is that the items used by Gingrich and Cheney to perpetuate the politics of fear are a huge pile of garbage. Gingrich can sit on Meet the Press and try to scare the American people for political gain, all while he is surrounded with evidence that his claims are wholly without merit. The idea that keeping Guantanamo open makes us safer has been debunked over and over again. Even if you reject the point that Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib have been key recruiting tools for al Qaeda (a point Durbin made over and over on Meet the Press ), the support of key leaders for closing Guantanamo and ending torture seems to be overwhelming. None other than Gen. David Petraeus, the right-wing darling who was the architect of the vaunted surge in Iraq, and who currently serves as the Commander of the U.S. Central Command, said last weekend that he agreed with President Obama's decisions to close down Guantanamo and reject torture. Petraeus also endorsed the symbolic value of closing Guantanamo. (Last night, Olbermann showed footage of Petraeus addressing these issues.) Durbin noted that Sen. Lindsey Graham has admitted that we can safely house terrorists in federal prisons in the U.S. And several individuals who have conducted interrogations have related that torture was not -- and is not -- an effective means by which to secure intelligence from suspects, most recently argued by a 14-year military interrogator going by the alias Matthew Alexander . So, basically, you have Cheney and Gingrich, and others, running around trying to scare the life out of Americans, arguing that President Obama has made us less safe, and if we shut down Guantanamo and stop torturing, the terrorists will run amok. But, at the same time, a vast majority of reputable sources, including Gen. David Petraeus, have completely debunked the Cheney/Gingrich vision of doom. Of course, I understand the political strategies that underlie the Cheney/Gingrich sky-is-falling claims. As Jonathan Alter pointed out on Olbermann last night , Cheney and Gingrich are "laying a trap" for President Obama, waiting for an attack so they can then say, "See, we were right. Obama made us less safe." But I think it goes beyond petty partisan politics. People like Gingrich and Cheney (and most of the Republicans in Congress) have a view of America that is completely out of sync with what America has meant over the last century, including what Reagan was drawing on when he made his speech in West Berlin. The America that Cheney and Gingrich see is one in which it's more about us versus them than preserving the very qualities that make America something worth defending. That is why I say that Cheney and Gingrich don't love America. Because they don't seem to care about American values as they have traditionally been viewed. At least before Bush took over the White House. More on Barack Obama
 
Harold S. Luft: Looking Beyond the Public Plan Debate Toward Real Reform Top
Everyone agrees that the nation's health care system is broken. Our patchwork insurance system gives health care providers the wrong financial incentives. Meaningful reform requires a complete overhaul. Many suggest the solution is as simple as crafting a public plan that competes with private insurers. While there are stark differences in how people envision a public plan, neither of the two major proposals goes far enough to transform the delivery system, improve quality of care, lower costs, and expand choice. We should create a major risk pool that allows plans to seek out -- not avoid -- people with health problems. This will eliminate wasteful underwriting and selective marketing costs. This risk pool should be publically chartered and operate independently, much like the Federal Reserve. It should be free from both the Congressional and Executive branch control so it is not influenced by special interest groups. Medicare's inability to do logical things ranging from competitive bidding for wheelchairs to increasing payments for primary care illustrates how vested interests can stymie change. Pooling risk is necessary, but not sufficient to achieve meaningful health care reform. The risk pool will use new ways to pay the providers so the actual delivery of health care can be transformed. These new mechanisms do not merely cut costs, like capping fees. Instead, new payment approaches can improve health care quality by paying providers for engaging in team-based care or rewarding health care innovation on the ground. More details on how a risk pool can transform the delivery of health through payment reform can be found in a blog post available now at Health Affairs . The complete white paper detailing this solution can be found here: " Beyond the Public Plan Debate: A Pathway to Transform the Delivery System ." More on Health
 
Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco and Carola Suarez-Orozco: Despite Sotomayor Nomination, Latino Academic Gap Still Huge Top
President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is inviting glossy-eyed "only in America" commentary domestically and throughout the world. But as the likely confirmation storm gathers force, biography will surely be pitted against ideology. To her opponents Judge Sotomayor's judicial philosophy -- particularly her flirtation with identity politics -- raises red flags of judicial activism and the impulse to legislate from the bench. To her supporters, the President above all, biography trumps everything else. The President's choice embodies a powerful life history of triumph over considerable adversity: a child of Puerto Rican working class immigrants, Judge Sotomayor went from the housing projects in the Bronx where she grew up, via Catholic School, and the most exclusive of Ivies (Princeton and Yale Law School) into the pinnacle of American legal power. While many are celebrating her journey - above all Latinos for whom her story captures the dreams and ambitions of America's largest yet still strangely invisible minority, the nomination should also be a cause for concern. Plotting Judge's Sotomayor journey against the realities of most Latinos and Latinas reveals just how much the Obama administration will need to do to bring the promise of the American Dream to the vast majority of the over 46 million Latinos (now 15 percent of the population and projected to reach thirty percent by 2050). Although some Latinos, especially Latinas, are successfully navigating the American educational system, the majority are struggling academically and leaving schools without acquiring the skills necessary to function in the new unforgiving global economy. Nationwide Latinos represent nearly 25 percent of public school students in kindergarten through 12th grade. They have the highest high school dropout rates and the lowest college attendance rates of all racial/ethnic groups. Many will face lives at or below the poverty level laboring at the lowest echelons of our increasingly competitive economy. The majority of Latinos face disadvantage and poverty. Child Trends reports [ PDF ] that at the dawn of the 20th century, Latino children were more likely than other group of children to live in very poor neighborhoods: "Sixty-one percent of poor Hispanic children lived in neighborhoods with a high concentration of poor residents (a neighborhood where at least 40 percent of the residents are poor), compared to 56 percent of white children and 53 percent of black children." While there was some improvement in Latino poverty rates in the first half of this decade, the recent economic collapse is reversing most of those modest gains. The most recent data [ PDF ] show that almost 30 percent of all Latino children are growing up in poverty. And according to the National Center for Children in Poverty [ PDF ], 9.5 million children (or over 60 percent of all Latino children) live in low-income households. Latinos and Latinas are struggling in schools. If we envision academic trajectories as a pipeline whose flow begins in preschool to prepare students to be carried through successive stages of education, resulting in high school and post-secondary studies, we would expect that a smooth, proportional current of students would arrive at each level, regardless of their demographic background. But this is not the case. At all educational levels, Latino students are lagging behind their white and other peers. National studies reveal an academic gap emerging as early as kindergarten and increasing systematically through graduate education. On average, Latinos achieve below their white and Asian peers upon entering school and this discrepancy widens over time. By the 12th grade, Latino students average only an 8th grade reading level and are more likely to drop out of high school than all other groups. National Center for Education Statistics reports that 22.1 percent of 16- to 24- year old Latinos were high school dropouts, compared to 5.8 percent for whites and 10.7 percent for African Americans. School dropout rates and high school completion rates are correlated. In 2006, only 63.2 percent of Latinos between the ages of 25 through 29 had completed high school, compared to 93.4 percent of whites and 86.3 percent of. Further, 23.9 percent of Latinos had less than a ninth-grade education compared with only 3.5 percent of whites. Although the Latino/white achievement gap (as well as the black/white gap) narrowed during the 1970's and 80's, it began to widen again during the 1990s. It persists today. Considering a variety of outcomes, Latinos perform poorly throughout their school years and are under-represented among students who earn college degrees. Based on 2000 U.S. Census data, of 100 Latino students who enter elementary school, 46 graduate from high school; 26 go onto college, of which 9 enroll in four-year college and 17 enroll in a community college; of the 17 only 1 transfers to a four-year college (notably of the 26 who enrolled in college, only 8 completed their four-year degree and 2 earned a graduate or professional degree. Any surprise, then, that according to the Times Judge Sotomayor found herself almost entirely without Latina peers at Princeton? Multiple indicators across the developmental trajectory suggest that Latinos are at a significant educational disadvantage from the time they enter kindergarten all the way to college. Future projections foreshadow negative trends unless the Administration develops significant new interventions. These interventions will ideally be based on an empirical and conceptual understanding of the factors that impede progress. A constellation of variables aligns to undermine Latino academic progress -- including poverty, segregation, parental education, language, documentation status, school factors (including segregation by language, race and poverty), English language learning, teacher preparation and expectations, individual socio-emotional and student engagement factors, generational factors, and social supports among others. Judge Sotomayor's biography is all the more inspiring considering the odds she faced. After celebrating her biography and debating her ideology let us turn this moment into a reflection of the work ahead so that the more than 16 million Latina and Latino children have a fair chance to follow her path. Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco and Carola Suárez-Orozco , co-founders of the Harvard Immigration Projects, are co-Directors of Immigration Studies at NYU. Their most recent book, Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society won the Virginia and Warren Stone Prize , awarded annually by Harvard University Press for an Outstanding Book on Education and Society. More on Latin America
 
It's OK To Screw Up In The Name Of The Planet Top
Being a crafter means being willing to fail - sometimes miserably - with your DIY attempts, laugh, and then dive back in with those knitting needles/embroidery thread/scissors/glue/Condom Henna Applicator (seriously, just click the link). My fave new blog to laugh with other peeps at their own crafty shortcomings (remember, it's not laughing at someone as long as the crafter's laughing too): Craft Fail. More on Green Living
 
Trip Van Noppen: Let's Keep Wilderness Wild Top
Road construction in national forests can harm fish and wildlife habitats while polluting local lakes, rivers, and streams. The Roadless Area Conservation Rule--which was made on the basis of extensive citizen input--protects 58.5 million acres of national forest from such harmful building. I will be proud to support and defend it. -- Senator Barack Obama, 2008 Both as a senator and as a candidate for the White House, President Obama was forthright in his support for the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protects nearly 60 million acres of pristine national forest lands. The rule was established by President Bill Clinton in 2001, but severely undercut by the Bush administration -- freezing its implementation, not defending it against industry court challenges, finally effectively repealing it by making it a state-by-state option that left roadless areas vulnerable to local political pressure. Earthjustice represented a wide swath of the environmental community in fighting off nine separate legal attacks on the rule filed by timber companies and a few states. The effort was remarkably successful, keeping the loggers and roadbuilders at bay and overturning Bush's local option rule. Several cases are still pending on the rule, or on site-specific projects such as proposed mines and timber sales in roadless areas. If these cases have to go through the entire process of decisions, appeals, and remands, years will go by without a resolution -- or full protection of roadless areas. In addition, later this year the Forest Service plans to offer several timber sales in roadless areas of Alaska's magnificent Tongass National Forest. That's why Earthjustice and our allies are calling on Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who oversees the Forest Service, to order an immediate time out on any projects in roadless areas pending the return of protection to all 60 million acres. The Forest Service should end the temporary exemption of the roadless rule in the Tongass, and should also stop the expansion of the Smoky Canyon Mine into roadless areas of Idaho's Caribou-Targhee National Forest. Secretary Vilsack must tell the Justice Department to drop the legal arguments carried over from the Bush administration and inform the courts that this administration supports the roadless rule. We are aware that the administration has its hands full -- the economy, climate and energy, health care, two wars -- but this is a no-brainer. The rule exists. Hundreds of hearings have already been held, millions of comments gathered, and Americans support roadless protection by a margin of 10 to 1. Supporters include hunters and anglers, religious leaders, scientists, backpackers and many more. Those who oppose the rule hope to profit from exploitation of these public resources for logging, mining, and other extractive activities. But roadless areas are extraordinarily valuable just as they are --for recreation, wildlife habitat, climate adaptation, and clean water supplies for hundreds of communities. The only way to put an end to the use of the roadless rule as a political football is by returning protections to all 60 million acres. More on Barack Obama
 
Foreign Companies Will Soon Be Leading Carmakers In U.S. Top
Before long, you'll be more likely to get an American-made car by buying an import brand instead of a Ford, General Motors, or Chrysler vehicle. New data show that for the first time ever, foreign-based carmakers are poised to build more vehicles in the United States than the Detroit 3.
 
Dem Senators Open To Allow Innocent Chinese Detainees To Live In U.S. Top
Members of Congress from both parties have been climbing over each other lately to be the most forceful opponent of transferring Guantanamo Bay detainees to prisons in their home states. But a group of 17 Chinese Muslims have been cleared by the Bush administration and aren't looking for a prison to lock them up -- they need a community to take them in. The Huffington Post asked senators how they'd deal with what should be a simpler problem but politically could be more difficult: What about the Uighurs? "This has just been such a horrible situation for these people," said Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the third-ranking Democrat. "They have been pilloried by people on the floor of the Senate, but most believe, most people I have heard from suggest that they should be returned, but the question is no one will take them." Why won't we take them? "I don't know. We may be in a position where that will be considered, but I leave that up to the administration. I just don't know," he said. Several senators began answers with the premise that the Uighurs were not a threat, but transitioned while they spoke to keeping them in prison. "I think anybody who is declared not to be a threat is not. We have plenty of places to hold people. We have maximum-security prisons that nobody is ever going to get out of. That's just a fact," said North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan. "There are going to be detainees that are not going to be able to be tried, for whatever reasons, and are going to have to be released. The question is where. And I think that's an issue that we need to talk about, because in some cases their native countries are not accepting them for whatever reasons. I think there are more options than just the United States, and I think we need to look at all the options," said Sen. Ben Cardin, a Democrat who represents Maryland, a state neighboring the Northern Virginia Uighur community that has volunteered to take them. "I would not exclude the United States," said Cardin. "I'm open to discussion on that. I don't know enough details to know," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) are the leading Republican theorists on detention policy in the Senate. Both said the Uighur situation could only be resolved by the implementation of a comprehensive policy that covered all detainees. "There's no policy. Again, we've got to have a policy," said McCain. "I'd be willing to negotiate with the White House to try to work out all these issues." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had taken a hard line on detainees earlier last week, saying that none could be transferred to the United States, not even to prisons. He dialed that back a bit in a recent interview with the Las Vegas Sun. But the best he would do is say the Uighurs "probably" don't belong in maximum security prison. "There's no question that a number of these people who are there are not guilty of anything. The Uighurs, these are a group of Muslim Chinese who are guilty of nothing. They were arrested, put in there. They are there. They are doing nothing. We're going to have to find someplace to put them. We can't send them back to China. Should they go into a maximum-security prison? Probably not," he said. The Uighurs themselves aren't optimistic that they'll be released anytime soon, they told their translator recently. "If we are the innocent ones from day one -- and for the past six years, and the government knew we were innocent -- if we are still here, how he is going to deal with the 240 prisoners and shut down the base by next January?" their translator says they wonder. "They're a little bit skeptical about it actually happening." Get HuffPost Politics On Facebook and Twitter!
 
Linda Martín Alcoff: Sotomayor's Reasoning Top
Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor has brought the relationship of identity to judgment center stage in the national debates. Sotomayor was widely cited leading up to yesterday's nomination for her view that gender and ethnicity "may and will make a difference in our judging." Such views are widely held, but not widely expressed or defended. The difference with Judge Sotomayor is simply that she has put the view out there. Critics from the right continue to spout slogans about neutrality and objectivity in reasoning, as if anyone could set aside all they know and have lived through in their assessments of a case. They are now raising the old canards about a mutually exclusive option between objective judgment versus biased reasoning. They cannot countenance the idea that identity can play any legitimate or productive role in reasoning; after all, allowing such an idea would make the pallor and body types that generally run Congress more of an evident problem. Critics from the left are often just as confused. They think that if identity affects judgment, it looks like politics will replace reason, and reason is generally the best arm of defense the left has against the increasingly hysterical and emotional appeals of the right. They also worry that the gender and ethnic identities Sotomayor refers to will be taken up in the public airwaves in stereotyped ways, as flat, monochromatic categories without any internal diversity or fluidity. Meanwhile, people on the street know better. They know that identity is a rough guide to experience, and that experience affects how we see things, what we notice, how we gauge the plausibility of a story, or the credibility of a speaker. It also affects what background understanding we have at our disposal, such as what life is like for children in diverse families, or among those who live paycheck to paycheck, or without paychecks. And it affects what baseline information we happen to know without having to do any research, such as knowledge about the sterilization abuse inflicted by the United States on Puerto Rican women or the history of treaty violations with American Indian tribes. Reasoning involves judgment calls, not deductive logic. The judgment of relevance, coherence, and plausibility can be more or less rational, but they are never axiomatic. When Anita Hill testified against Justice Thomas nearly two decades ago, Congressmen kept repeating their perplexity over the fact that she didn't "immediately report." How could such egregious offenses have really occurred if she did not march right down to the Human Resources office and report the crime? Many of us watching, many women, wondered what planet these guys lived on. Give up a good job for what would surely be a long drawn out fight with little chance to win while gaining an almost certain reputation as a trouble maker? It's hopeless nine times out of 10 to fight the boss on sexual harassment, and most women know this from personal experience. Anita Hill chose to make a fight when more than her own situation was at stake, when Thomas was put forward for a position with unimaginable power in which his small minded misogyny could conceivably harm many others. Then, it became worth the gamble of losing. The lives of others were at stake. Still, she lost. Judge Sotomayor has simply stated upfront what most of us know full well: identity affects experience, and experience makes a difference in our judgment. It is never absolute or foolproof: Clarence Thomas's own background did not lead him to the left, thus showing that no identities are flat or monochromatic. We each have to interpret on our own what our identities mean, and in what way our experience is, or is not, relevant to a given situation. Acknowledging the relevance of identity does not replace reason with politics; it simply expands our idea of what reason is, and makes it more reasonable. Linda Martín Alcoff's book, Visible Identities: Race Gender and the Self (Oxford 2006), takes up these questions at greater length. Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College, she was named one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics for 2006 by Hispanic Business Magazine. More on Sonia Sotomayor
 
Funny & Fine: Who's America's Sexiest Comedian? You Decide! (SLIDESHOW) (POLL) Top
We've selected 15 of the sexiest funnymen we know for a HuffPost poll of ridiculous proportions. They're all hilarious, they're all more comedian than actor (sorry Paul Rudd!), and they're all sexy as hell. Think we're missing someone? Complain about it in the comments section! Missed the ladies list? Click here and vote for them too! More on Jimmy Fallon
 

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