The Baker Commission report is kind of like the bible, in that hardcore conservatives claim to have the one true understanding of it that everybody else is just wrong about, but the way they read it they wind up getting this bizarre, nonsensical interpretation out of it that nobody else can find anywhere in there.
Well, from a purely pragmatic, "how Washington works" perspective, Unions are bad because they would kill Wal Mart's profit margins.
Unions are bad because they destroy industries. See: airlines and auto manufacturing.
Monolithic unions that control all labor in an industry and are able to manipulate the going rate of that labor are bad. See: Construction.
I think we had this discussion somewhere else before, and after the fact I think I came up with a decent litmus test to tell when a union is beneficial and necessary (in that it helps guarantee fair wages and worker safety), and when it's destructive (like in the airlines or auto industry): You should be completely unable to tell a job is represented by a union unless you were told. The work should paid what both labor and management generally agree is a fair wage, and the workers shouldn't be open to abuse or protected more than a worker in a nonunion position would be.
It's sort of a nebulous distinction that may be hard to apply in practice, but it does help make the distinction between necessary and detrimental unions, which I think every agrees are two distinct entities.
The Baker commission said that a troop surge should only be implimented if it is part of a larger comprehensive strategy. This is exactly Carl Levin's position in the House I believe.
Joe Biden in the Senate has seemed more anti-surge rhetorically, but I believe this is also his actual position and the inflated rhetoric has to do with his presidential run.
The Baker commission said that a troop surge should only be implimented if it is part of a larger comprehensive strategy. This is exactly Carl Levin's position in the House I believe.
When the Democratic leadership issues a joint statement stating that, quote, "There are no military solutions to Iraq, only political solutions," (emphasis mine) it sort of undercuts Carl Levin.
We'll ignore the fact that all military operations are political to some extent.
Biden's position is that the administration has still presented no real strategy changes thus sending in more troops is just a delaying tactic. He's pumping up his rhetoric quite a bit but he does still have a point.
Biden's position is that the administration has still presented no real strategy changes thus sending in more troops is just a delaying tactic. He's pumping up his rhetoric quite a bit but he does still have a point.
The administration hasn't said what they're doing, which makes that position sort of asinine.
Biden's position is that the administration has still presented no real strategy changes thus sending in more troops is just a delaying tactic. He's pumping up his rhetoric quite a bit but he does still have a point.
The administration hasn't said what they're doing, which makes that position sort of asinine.
They seem to be leaning towards "Send troops now! Discuss actual strategy later!"
Sorry I'm about 5 years past giving this administration the benefit of the doubt when they say they have everything under control
The Baker commission said that a troop surge should only be implimented if it is part of a larger comprehensive strategy. This is exactly Carl Levin's position in the House I believe.
When the Democratic leadership issues a joint statement stating that, quote, "There are no military solutions to Iraq, only political solutions," (emphasis mine) it sort of undercuts Carl Levin.
This is in no way contradictory to Carl Levin and the Baker commission.
Don't make me go to the book shelf to get the commission report and quote it to you.
Bush's on-the-offensive-against-the-Democrats-on-Iraq "surge" strategy may actually be having the effect of fracturing the Republicans, which may be the exact opposite of the effect he wanted.
Bush's on-the-offensive-against-the-Democrats-on-Iraq "surge" strategy may actually be having the effect of fracturing the Republicans, which may be the exact opposite of the effect he wanted.
The thing is that from a policy and doing-the-right-thing point of view, the Democrats might disagree on the correct policy in Iraq. From a political point of view, it's really a no-brainer: criticise Bush's troop spike as "stay the course plus" but continue to authorize funding in the amount he asks, making it clear that he owns this failure.
If congress cuts Iraq funding (or failed to authorize funding for the troop spike), Bush could blame the inevitable failure on the Democrats, and could do things like make sure the funding shortfall came out of the most painful and public areas (like, I dunno, troop pay cuts or something).
The thing is that from a policy and doing-the-right-thing point of view, the Democrats might disagree on the correct policy in Iraq. From a political point of view, it's really a no-brainer: criticise Bush's troop spike as "stay the course plus" but continue to authorize funding in the amount he asks, making it clear that he owns this failure.
Yeah. Bush kind of went into this with the biggest thing on his side being that the Dems are so disunified on Iraq. But the one easiest way to fix that problem for the Democrats is for Bush to take a position so extreme and stupid that the Democrats unify against him.
If congress cuts Iraq funding (or failed to authorize funding for the troop spike), Bush could... do things like make sure the funding shortfall came out of the most painful and public areas (like, I dunno, troop pay cuts or something).
Can he do that? I mean, doesn't Congress have a good bit of leeway about specifying where money does and doesn't go within the military?
I wonder if congress could somehow withdraw authorization for the military to be in Iraq without actually cutting the funding.
If congress cuts Iraq funding (or failed to authorize funding for the troop spike), Bush could... do things like make sure the funding shortfall came out of the most painful and public areas (like, I dunno, troop pay cuts or something).
Can he do that? I mean, doesn't Congress have a good bit of leeway about specifying where money does and doesn't go within the military?
Honestly I'm not completely sure. I'm sure he could cock it up in some public fashion and blame every single problem on the lack of funding or lack of "troop spike".
I wonder if congress could somehow withdraw authorization for the military to be in Iraq without actually cutting the funding.
I don't believe so. It would be a bad idea anyhow, because doing such a thing makes the Dems ultimately own the failure, and makes the "lesson learned" something like "ohh we had them on the ropes but then those cowardly Dems cut and ran"
Has the "troop surge" Bush plan actually come out officially, or is this all based on what everyone expects the plan to be? I've been keeping a vague eye out and I didn't see anything official, and I really wasn't expecting anything until this whole 100 hours push is over anyway.
Has the "troop surge" Bush plan actually come out officially, or is this all based on what everyone expects the plan to be? I've been keeping a vague eye out and I didn't see anything official, and I really wasn't expecting anything until this whole 100 hours push is over anyway.
Official statement is Wednesday. Everything everyone is going apeshit over is supposition.
Has the "troop surge" Bush plan actually come out officially, or is this all based on what everyone expects the plan to be? I've been keeping a vague eye out and I didn't see anything official, and I really wasn't expecting anything until this whole 100 hours push is over anyway.
Official statement is Wednesday. Everything everyone is going apeshit over is supposition.
I know, it's idiotic.
I suppose they should be forgiven though, seeing the stakes.
Has the "troop surge" Bush plan actually come out officially, or is this all based on what everyone expects the plan to be? I've been keeping a vague eye out and I didn't see anything official, and I really wasn't expecting anything until this whole 100 hours push is over anyway.
Official statement is Wednesday. Everything everyone is going apeshit over is supposition.
I know, it's idiotic.
I suppose they should be forgiven though, seeing the stakes.
I thought Wed. was just the public announcement. I would think that anything that's been decided is already being worked on or at the very least sent to the relevant people and already leaked. You don't just spring a plan on the Joint Chiefs.
Has the "troop surge" Bush plan actually come out officially, or is this all based on what everyone expects the plan to be? I've been keeping a vague eye out and I didn't see anything official, and I really wasn't expecting anything until this whole 100 hours push is over anyway.
Official statement is Wednesday. Everything everyone is going apeshit over is supposition.
I know, it's idiotic.
I suppose they should be forgiven though, seeing the stakes.
Most of the "supposition" is stuff that has been leaked by the administration in advance of the speech. So, it's hardly groundless.
Has the "troop surge" Bush plan actually come out officially, or is this all based on what everyone expects the plan to be? I've been keeping a vague eye out and I didn't see anything official, and I really wasn't expecting anything until this whole 100 hours push is over anyway.
Official statement is Wednesday. Everything everyone is going apeshit over is supposition.
I know, it's idiotic.
I suppose they should be forgiven though, seeing the stakes.
Most of the "supposition" is stuff that has been leaked by the administration in advance of the speech. So, it's hardly groundless.
Pretty much. If the Bush Administration wanted any response whatsoever other than the one they're getting, they could have just announced the plan, rather than leaking/publicly announcing the elements of the plan most likely to spark wide disagreement and then waiting four weeks. The administration was very clearly and specifically attempting, so to speak, to start a flamewar. Well, okay, they got one.
As far as the rest of the plan goes, though, this is the Bush Administration. I think it's unbelievably unlikely that when the plan is released, it will contain any features other than "surge by 20,000 troops, then we win!" (Well, okay, "surge by 20,000 troops, secure baghdad and all those other places we keep consistently failing to secure but this time it will work because now we have more people doing it, then we win".) But we'll see about that, I guess.
Anyway the only thing that has me worried is, they announce the plan on wednesday. Wednesday is the day the house has scheduled for the stem cell research bill. If the house does something to react to Bush, and they get distracted and it interferes with that, I'm going to be super annoyed.
Start the clock. They're right now kicking off on 9/11 Commission debate.
Was stupid to change their focus from domestic agenda and political reform to Iraq. They could have done something about the former two, and can basically do nothing with Iraq.
Maybe a DHS review is useful I guess, but it's really a briar patch that'll take a long time to resolve anything useful.
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GoslingLooking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, ProbablyWatertown, WIRegistered Userregular
Start the clock. They're right now kicking off on 9/11 Commission debate.
Was stupid to change their focus from domestic agenda and political reform to Iraq. They could have done something about the former two, and can basically do nothing with Iraq.
Maybe a DHS review is useful I guess, but it's really a briar patch that'll take a long time to resolve anything useful.
As far as I know, the agenda is already set. They can talk Iraq after hours, but when they hit the floor they're still talking the domestic agenda.
Gosling on
I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
I'm increasingly thinking that if a blog doesn't exist that summarizes all of Congress' actions for the day with some trivial explanation of what it means, one needs to be created...
I hear from a rather upset colleague that the new congress is set to skip the budget and appropration process with regards to NSF funding, and instead extend the Continuing Resolution that limits federal agencies to last year's funding amounts. When numerous excellent grant proposals are being denied these days for lack of funding (the NSF funding increases we have been hoping for are being referred to as "long awaited and long overdue"), this seems like a major problem. Anyone else heard about this?
Start the clock. They're right now kicking off on 9/11 Commission debate.
Was stupid to change their focus from domestic agenda and political reform to Iraq. They could have done something about the former two, and can basically do nothing with Iraq.
Maybe a DHS review is useful I guess, but it's really a briar patch that'll take a long time to resolve anything useful.
I think this pretty much just means they're going to implement port inspections, say "whoop, we fixed the DHS!", and then move on to something else.
Marty81: Yeah. That's pretty much exactly what I heard. Here's some depressing graphs.
Why would the new Democratic Congress do that? I thought the intentional stifling of national scientific (and health) research funds was a distinctly Republican thing to do.
Instead, we have this 9/11 Commission bullshit and related issues to waste time with.
I sort of get the impression that the new congress just sort of wants to flaunt the fact that it's under Democratic control for a while, without really doing anything.
Marty81: Yeah. That's pretty much exactly what I heard. Here's some depressing graphs.
Why would the new Democratic Congress do that? I thought the intentional stifling of national scientific (and health) research funds was a distinctly Republican thing to do.
Experience tip: When the party you've been waiting for finally sweeps into power, don't expect your dreams to come true. They'll probably just get nasty drunk in their own power and screw things up.
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
Experience tip: When the party you've been waiting for finally sweeps into power, don't expect your dreams to come true. They'll probably just get nasty drunk in their own power and screw things up.
I don't think that too many Dem voters are planning on giving this congress a pass.
Marty81: Yeah. That's pretty much exactly what I heard. Here's some depressing graphs.
Why would the new Democratic Congress do that? I thought the intentional stifling of national scientific (and health) research funds was a distinctly Republican thing to do.
Instead, we have this 9/11 Commission bullshit and related issues to waste time with.
I sort of get the impression that the new congress just sort of wants to flaunt the fact that it's under Democratic control for a while, without really doing anything.
another note: If you're elected overwhelmingly, people expect immediate action. Hit the ground running or you're fucked.
I did a little more research and it looks like this issue won't hit 'til the first week of February, but people are expecting Congress to skip over the budgeting issue and go with the continuing resolution.
Well, from a purely pragmatic, "how Washington works" perspective, Unions are bad because they would kill Wal Mart's profit margins.
Unions are bad because they destroy industries. See: airlines and auto manufacturing.
No, CEOs running the businesses into the red and then giving themselves multimillion dollar severance packages after laying off massive amounts of workers is what destroyed those industries.
Well, from a purely pragmatic, "how Washington works" perspective, Unions are bad because they would kill Wal Mart's profit margins.
Unions are bad because they destroy industries. See: airlines and auto manufacturing.
Yeah, the Unions are what destroyed the American auto industry. It certainly wasnt't their shitty products.
Or prevailing wages based upon a broad increase in quality of life within an advanced country.
Christ, with all the bitching about unions, you'd think these guys were going to bad for all those stellar pre-union working conditions because, hell, I work in IT and we don't have to worry about that shit!
Well, from a purely pragmatic, "how Washington works" perspective, Unions are bad because they would kill Wal Mart's profit margins.
Unions are bad because they destroy industries. See: airlines and auto manufacturing.
Yeah, the Unions are what destroyed the American auto industry. It certainly wasnt't their shitty products.
Get a grip man.
Just because a company which churned out all their profit from one of the most gas-guzzling vehicles in the world saw a $1 billion dollar loss in a single quarter when gas prices went up substantially doesn't mean that their failure had anything at all to do with their corporate strategy. Clearly, it was the unions who made them focus all of their energy on building hella shitty, incredibly uneconomical vehicles.
Posts
The Baker Commission report is kind of like the bible, in that hardcore conservatives claim to have the one true understanding of it that everybody else is just wrong about, but the way they read it they wind up getting this bizarre, nonsensical interpretation out of it that nobody else can find anywhere in there.
Monolithic unions that control all labor in an industry and are able to manipulate the going rate of that labor are bad. See: Construction.
I think we had this discussion somewhere else before, and after the fact I think I came up with a decent litmus test to tell when a union is beneficial and necessary (in that it helps guarantee fair wages and worker safety), and when it's destructive (like in the airlines or auto industry): You should be completely unable to tell a job is represented by a union unless you were told. The work should paid what both labor and management generally agree is a fair wage, and the workers shouldn't be open to abuse or protected more than a worker in a nonunion position would be.
It's sort of a nebulous distinction that may be hard to apply in practice, but it does help make the distinction between necessary and detrimental unions, which I think every agrees are two distinct entities.
The Baker commission said that a troop surge should only be implimented if it is part of a larger comprehensive strategy. This is exactly Carl Levin's position in the House I believe.
Joe Biden in the Senate has seemed more anti-surge rhetorically, but I believe this is also his actual position and the inflated rhetoric has to do with his presidential run.
We'll ignore the fact that all military operations are political to some extent.
They seem to be leaning towards "Send troops now! Discuss actual strategy later!"
Sorry I'm about 5 years past giving this administration the benefit of the doubt when they say they have everything under control
This is in no way contradictory to Carl Levin and the Baker commission.
Don't make me go to the book shelf to get the commission report and quote it to you.
Bush's on-the-offensive-against-the-Democrats-on-Iraq "surge" strategy may actually be having the effect of fracturing the Republicans, which may be the exact opposite of the effect he wanted.
The thing is that from a policy and doing-the-right-thing point of view, the Democrats might disagree on the correct policy in Iraq. From a political point of view, it's really a no-brainer: criticise Bush's troop spike as "stay the course plus" but continue to authorize funding in the amount he asks, making it clear that he owns this failure.
If congress cuts Iraq funding (or failed to authorize funding for the troop spike), Bush could blame the inevitable failure on the Democrats, and could do things like make sure the funding shortfall came out of the most painful and public areas (like, I dunno, troop pay cuts or something).
Can he do that? I mean, doesn't Congress have a good bit of leeway about specifying where money does and doesn't go within the military?
I wonder if congress could somehow withdraw authorization for the military to be in Iraq without actually cutting the funding.
Honestly I'm not completely sure. I'm sure he could cock it up in some public fashion and blame every single problem on the lack of funding or lack of "troop spike".
I don't believe so. It would be a bad idea anyhow, because doing such a thing makes the Dems ultimately own the failure, and makes the "lesson learned" something like "ohh we had them on the ropes but then those cowardly Dems cut and ran"
I know, it's idiotic.
I suppose they should be forgiven though, seeing the stakes.
I thought Wed. was just the public announcement. I would think that anything that's been decided is already being worked on or at the very least sent to the relevant people and already leaked. You don't just spring a plan on the Joint Chiefs.
Pretty much. If the Bush Administration wanted any response whatsoever other than the one they're getting, they could have just announced the plan, rather than leaking/publicly announcing the elements of the plan most likely to spark wide disagreement and then waiting four weeks. The administration was very clearly and specifically attempting, so to speak, to start a flamewar. Well, okay, they got one.
As far as the rest of the plan goes, though, this is the Bush Administration. I think it's unbelievably unlikely that when the plan is released, it will contain any features other than "surge by 20,000 troops, then we win!" (Well, okay, "surge by 20,000 troops, secure baghdad and all those other places we keep consistently failing to secure but this time it will work because now we have more people doing it, then we win".) But we'll see about that, I guess.
Reminds me of Bush's approval rating among black Americans.
Maybe a DHS review is useful I guess, but it's really a briar patch that'll take a long time to resolve anything useful.
I think this pretty much just means they're going to implement port inspections, say "whoop, we fixed the DHS!", and then move on to something else.
Why would the new Democratic Congress do that? I thought the intentional stifling of national scientific (and health) research funds was a distinctly Republican thing to do.
Instead, we have this 9/11 Commission bullshit and related issues to waste time with.
I sort of get the impression that the new congress just sort of wants to flaunt the fact that it's under Democratic control for a while, without really doing anything.
another note: If you're elected overwhelmingly, people expect immediate action. Hit the ground running or you're fucked.
I hope they wake up before then.
No, CEOs running the businesses into the red and then giving themselves multimillion dollar severance packages after laying off massive amounts of workers is what destroyed those industries.
Yeah, the Unions are what destroyed the American auto industry. It certainly wasnt't their shitty products.
Get a grip man.
Christ, with all the bitching about unions, you'd think these guys were going to bad for all those stellar pre-union working conditions because, hell, I work in IT and we don't have to worry about that shit!