DNC to Florida Democrats: Drop Dead

Once again, our party has shot itself in the foot by snubbing Florida voters. At the insistence of the Democratic National Committee, all of the major Democratic Presidential candidates are refusing to participate in the early Florida and Michigan primaries which party officials fear will overshadow the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina primaries.

The decision of the Democratic National Commitee and our leading Presidential contenders is a slap in the face of voters in a diverse and heavily populated state. Florida Democrats had no control over setting the primary date as both Houses of the State Legislature and the Governor's Mansion are held by the Republican Party. Despite the "special" status given by the DNC to states like Iowa and New Hampshire, it should be noted that Florida has long been one of the earlier primary states. Back in 1972, Florida was the second Presidential primary after New Hampshire and the state has consistently fallen on the early side of primary election calendar since. Florida is a far better test of a candidate's national appeal than the ability to draw voters to Iowa caucuses or win a New Hampshire primary.

To disenfrachise Florida's Democratic voters is not only unfair but also terrible politics. Any chance that Democrats can win Florida in 2008 has been greatly diminished. Today's electorate is not going to tolerate being pushed around by party bosses. And I think Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama and John Edwards all deserve a "Profiles in Cowardice" award for refusing to stand up to the DNC hierarchy.

Democrats boycott Florida race

By ADAM C. SMITH
Times Political Editor
Published September 2, 2007

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/09/02/State/Democrats_boycott_Flo.shtml
All of the major Democratic candidates for president abruptly agreed Saturday to boycott Florida's primary because it is scheduled on Jan. 29, too early according to national party rules.
Top-tier candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama on Saturday joined a boycott that began Friday among the lesser-known candidates, who probably couldn't have afforded to campaign in the Sunshine State anyway.

Now, Clinton, Obama, John Edwards and the others will not make campaign appearances in Florida, or any other state that breaks Democratic National Committee rules by scheduling a primary before Feb. 5. Michigan is considering such a move.

The candidates will continue to raise money in Florida, and they will attend next week's Univision debate in Miami. But the bottom line is Florida stands to be irrelevant in the presidential primary.

Florida Democrats already were being pressed by the DNC not to count the votes from Jan. 29 and instead award the state's delegates to candidates later, based upon some still-undecided method such as party caucuses around the state.

At a time when leading Republican candidates already are campaigning feverishly to build Florida support, the Democrats' surprise move will do nothing to help them ultimately win Florida's 27 electoral votes in the general election in 2008.

"It is treating the largest swing state in the country in a way that makes it harder for the nominee to win in the fall," said Democratic pollster Dave Beattie of Jacksonville. "And if Democrats are going to write off Florida, that makes it easier for Republicans to compete in other states."

State Sen. Jeremy Ring, a Broward County Democrat who joined the Republican push to move Florida's primary from March to January, promptly yanked his endorsement of Barack Obama for signing the boycott pledge, saying it ensured Florida issues would not be front and center for Democrats.

"What scares me the most is the Republicans are still going to campaign here, and they're going to have a six-month head start on us," Ring said.

The Florida primary meltdown started Friday evening when underdog Democrats Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden signed a "four-state pledge" to campaign only in the small states permitted to hold nominating contests in January: Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

But on Saturday morning, Edwards and Obama signed the pledge. Florida front-runner Clinton did, too, rather than antagonize voters in crucial states like Iowa and New Hampshire.
"We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process," came the statement from the Clinton campaign at 4 p.m. "And we believe the DNC's rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role."

Both parties are struggling to maintain some control over the presidential nominating schedule and process, as more and more states, jealous of the outsized influence of small states like New Hampshire, try to move their primary elections earlier and earlier.

After hearings last year, the DNC set a calendar aimed at preserving the traditional importance of Iowa and New Hampshire, while adding some racial and geographic diversity with Nevada and South Carolina. The Republican National Committee approved a similar schedule that also barred larger states from setting elections before Feb. 5.

Florida's Republican-controlled Legislature, however, set the primary for Jan. 29. The Florida GOP is trying to avoid losing half of its delegates to the national convention, but that fight has been nowhere near as antagonistic as the Democrats' dispute.

On Aug. 25, a DNC panel voted to strip Florida of all its delegates to the convention unless the state party declared the Jan. 29 election nonbinding. Instead, the national party wants Florida Democrats to hold party-run elections later, perhaps a series of congressional district caucuses, to allocate presidential delegates.

No way, said Florida Democratic leaders. They threatened lawsuits, saying the DNC directive would disenfranchise Florida Democratic voters and cost millions of dollars. Then, late last week, Michigan's Legislature voted to move its primary to Jan. 15, and the presidential candidates started signing the pledge to boycott any state violating the Feb. 5 window.

Edwards said in a statement: "Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina need to be first because in these states ideas count, not just money. These are places where voters get to look the candidate in the eye and measure their policies, ideas, and integrity."

The pledge bars the candidates from campaigning for votes in Florida, but not trolling for campaign dollars. Florida has a deep pool of Democratic donors, and the campaigns are not sacrificing there.

It's unclear how the fundraising will work now. Some of the candidates, particularly Obama and Edwards, have made a hallmark of hosting fundraisers that charge as little as $15 per person, making them more like campaign rallies than true fundraisers.

It also is an open question just how receptive donors will be given the boycott. One top Democratic fundraiser, trial lawyer Wayne Hogan of Jacksonville, already was so angry about Florida losing its delegates that he called Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean last week to cancel a DNC fundraiser.

"Any candidate that boycotts Florida and thinks that they will raise money here will be sadly disappointed," said state Senate Democratic leader Steve Geller. "And it is my prediction that any candidate who boycotts Florida and thinks Florida will welcome them later will be sorely disappointed."

Not everyone's complaining. "When I signed onto Barack, I signed on to help him become president of the United States, not president of the Florida primary," said Tampa businessman Frank Sanchez, a top Florida Obama supporter. "We've got to put our best foot forward and that's what we're going to do."

Florida Democratic leaders no longer sounded as defiant Saturday as they had in recent days, declining to say whether they would reconsider a caucus later in February. Sen. Bill Nelson did not respond to a request for comment, nor did state Democratic chairwoman Karen Thurman.
"No matter which cards we're dealt," said state party executive director Leonard Joseph, "Florida Democrats are going to win the state's 27 electoral votes and elect a Democratic president in 2008. The country needs us."

Sen. Ring, the Democrat who sponsored the move to Jan. 29, found a silver lining: "We weren't relevant before this, but if we did anything here we blew up the primary process so it will finally have to be fixed."

http://www.sptimes.com/

Sam Nunn for President ?

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution...

Sam Nunn left the U.S. Senate more than 10 years ago.
Since then, the Georgia Democrat, who made his name nationally as a defense-minded hawk, has watched what’s happened to the country, and he’s more than a bit ticked — at the “fiasco” in Iraq, a federal budget spinning out of control, the lack of an honest energy policy, and a presidential contest that, he says, seems designed to thwart serious discussion of the looming crises.

Sam Nunn is still considered one of the foremost experts on national security.
In an hourlong interview, in his small office on Marietta Street on the edge of the Georgia Tech campus, Nunn acknowledged that he — like former Georgia congressman Newt Gingrich — is considering a run for the White House next year.

But unlike Gingrich, Nunn would run outside the traditional two-party structure.
“It’s a possibility, not a probability,” said Nunn, now the head of a nonprofit organization out to reduce the threat posed by nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry. “My own thinking is, it may be a time for the country to say, ‘Timeout. The two-party system has served us well, historically, but it’s not serving us now.’”

The 68-year-old former senator, still considered one of the foremost experts on national security, confirmed that he’s discussed a presidential run as part of several conversations with Michael Bloomberg, the New York mayor.

More important, Nunn said he’s been in touch with Unity ‘08 http://www.unity08.com/
, a group with a goal of fielding a bipartisan or independent ticket for president. Initial talks began with Hamilton Jordan, a co-founder of Unity ‘08 and former chief of staff to President Jimmy Carter.

Doug Bailey, a Republican strategist and another co-founder, said Nunn was given “a more detailed briefing” from the group this summer.

Nunn said he’s not likely to make up his mind until next year, probably after the early rush of presidential primaries have produced de facto nominees for both parties. He said the decision will depend largely on what he hears from the current candidates. The only certainty, he said, is that he won’t be anybody’s candidate for vice president.

Former state lawmaker Larry Walker of Perry, a close friend who replaced Nunn in the state House 35 years ago, believes Nunn is even more serious than his comments suggest.
“I think he’s determined to affect the debate in the presidential race,” he said.

Walker said Nunn is under no illusion — third-party presidential candidates are historically poor finishers. “But I also think he realizes the dynamics have changed so much as a result of the Internet. We’re not in the Ross Perot era,” Walker said.

In the interview, Nunn admitted he is also tempted by the fact that a presidential run would offer him a world stage to press for a revolutionary shift in U.S. defense and foreign policy.

In January, Nunn joined with a coterie of defense and diplomatic experts that include Henry Kissinger and George Shultz to argue that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of terrorism have forever altered the calculus of war.

In a new era in which the chief concern is Islamic jihadism, a world security system built around a nuclear stand-off between the United States and Russia has become “obsolete,” Nunn says.
Ultimately, he said, if there’s to be any chance of persuading smaller countries to give up nuclear weapons technology — and keep it out of the hands of increasingly sophisticated terrorists — world powers will have to put themselves on a gradual, verifiable path toward total nuclear disarmament. That includes the United States.

“What I’m describing is a different world than the one I was in during the Cold War,” Nunn said.
A native of Perry who went to Washington at age 34, Nunn abandoned national politics at the height of his popularity in 1997, two years after Democrats lost control of Congress and Nunn lost chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In Democratic circles, Nunn served as a mainstay for party centrists, but also developed an unusually strong following among Republicans who liked Nunn’s independence and his emphasis on defense and fiscal conservatism.

Though not as well-known as he once was, Nunn’s reputation in Georgia remains high. On Tuesday, the Rome News-Tribune, responding to the first reports of Nunn’s interest in the presidency, promptly endorsed him.

Like Carter and Gingrich, who became U.S. House speaker in 1994, Nunn was a center of Georgia influence in Washington. Unlike Carter and Gingrich, he has remained largely out of the limelight in his post-Washington years. He’s written no books, and — as a man who still speaks in paragraphs instead of sound bites — isn’t a regular on high-paying talk circuits.

Instead, Nunn has remained quietly plugged into the nitty-gritty issues of U.S. defense and foreign policy. In July, he was one of four other Americans corralled by Kissinger into private talks in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin and other Russian heavyweights on how to improve U.S.-Russian relations.

Next week, he returns to Moscow with U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) to mark the 15th anniversary of the Nunn-Lugar Act, which has provided U.S. funding and expertise to help the former Soviet Union safeguard and dismantle its stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Nunn is also CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative http://www.nti.org/, a private charitable organization originally bankrolled by Ted Turner. The group’s headquarters is in Washington, but Nunn operates out of his office at Tech, where he holds an honorary professorship.

Because of his well-mined expertise, for the past 20 years he has been a perennial possibility when presidential tickets are discussed. Each time he’s quickly said no.
What’s different this time?

“I am frustrated, and clearly frustrated, with the fact that I think my children and grandchildren are not going to have the kind of future they should be having,” Nunn said.
Political debate has been captured by the extreme wings of both parties, he said, ignoring solutions that can only be found in the middle.

“I do not see tough calls willing to be made by the body politic,” he said.

Nunn singled out the debate over energy and global warming. Those most concerned with global warming won’t consider nuclear energy as an alternative, he said. Those who advocate energy independence ignore the fact that there is “no analysis whatsoever that could lead you to believe we’re going to be independent in this country on energy,” Nunn said. “We’ll have interdependence and security in energy, but people aren’t talking about that.”

But if Nunn does decide to enter the race, Iraq, terrorism and the increasingly strained state of the U.S. military will also have their place as major motivations.
Though he has said little publicly, his frustration over Iraq — he opposed the first Gulf War in ‘91 — can barely be contained. “A fiasco, which we’ve basically mishandled in all directions. We’ll get over it, because we’re a strong country, and we’re indispensable in the sense that we’re the [world] leader. But right now,it’s going to take at least 10 years to rebuild U.S. credibility.”

Nor has the Bush administration been able to create the necessary climate to make it easy for the world’s Muslim population to isolate jihadist terrorists, Nunn said.

“We’re in a race between cooperation and catastrophe. And to get cooperation you have to have a vision, and you have to listen. And we’re not perceived as having a vision in this country, and we’re not perceived as listening.”

The question is whether the American center — or what’s left of it — shares his frustration.
http://www.ajc.com/


Writing in a recent issue of Human Events , Georgia conservative radio talk host Martha Zoller offers an interesting spin on a possible Nunn candidacy.
www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=21928

Nunn was a centrist Democrat of the old school by weaving a coalition of black and rural voters, and was one of the last of his kind. Nunn tried to steer his party into the middle and was often frustrated. In his retirement remarks he described the Democratic Party as pursuing a ``brain-dead defense of the status quo.''

He praised the Republican revolution for seeking lower taxes and entitlement reform but also said the revolution was in danger of going to extremes. In his retirement announcement he said that neither party is serving the people and that they need to break their dependence on money and special interests or a third party will surely rise. He called for two-year budgeting so the Congress can spend less time on passing money bills and more time overseeing how the money is spent."

Not much has changed since 1996. So what about Sam Nunn today? He’s stayed involved in policy on defense and nuclear issues. He works with the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and is involved with the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at his alma mater of Georgia Tech. He has been involved with the Center for Strategic and International Affairs and is a retired partner of King and Spaulding. He’s served on the boards of Chevron, Coca-Cola, Dell Computer and General Electric. He’s also worked with potential rival, Fred Thompson on the film “Last Best Chance” on the dangers of excess nuclear weapons materials.

In the mid nineties, Nunn partnered up with Sen. Pete Dominici on a consumption based tax for tax reform. He has made no public statements that would indicate he has changed his mind on that. Fiscal discipline and the two political parties lack of is did factor into his decision to look at an independent opportunity for 2008 according to insiders close to him. So he seems to still be a fiscal conservative if he is a part of an independent candidacy.

The biggest issue of the day is terrorism and national security. Where would Sen. Nunn stand on terrorism today? On June 14, 2007, Nunn spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations about the threats we face today. He said, “The greatest threat we face today -- catastrophic terrorism, a rise in the number of the nuclear weapons states, increasing danger of mistaken, accidental or unauthorized nuclear launch -- we can prevent only in cooperation with Moscow, Beijing and many other capitals.” He went on to say, “If al Qaeda had hit the Trade Towers with a small crude nuclear weapon instead of two airplanes, a fireball would have vaporized everything in the vicinity.”

Nunn gets it and has talked around the world about the dangers of nuclear weapons and the role of US leadership, cooperation with allies and “urgent new actions” that need to be taken against terrorist groups that are “conceptually outside the bounds of a deterrent strategy.”

The immigration issue has formed new alliances because border security first is not a partisan issue. Movement by the administration late last week in the direction of an overwhelming number of Americans on border security and workplace enforcement is the right move, but won’t be enough unless they mean to maintain the enforcement. That leaves the bad taste that people have for one party having all the power still in the mouths of the voters. That tends to support the election of a Republican for President or opens the door for an independent candidate. Sam Nunn knows how to walk through open doors and make the most of it. He’s done that all his life. If there is an independent candidate for President with the money to run will he take away from Republicans or Democrats? The answer to that question will determine who wins. http://www.marthazoller.com/

In my view, Sam Nunn would make an excellent President of the United States. Nunn seems like a real statesman in an era of shallow and sleazy politicians who care little or nothing about the long-term national interest.

Of course, any independent or third party candidacy is a real long-shot and the impact of a possible Nunn campaign on the 2008 election outcome remains to be seen. Nunn has obvious appeal to moderate to conservative Democrats but could also attract significant numbers of independent and centrist Republican voters.

Perhaps Nunn would at least force the major party candidates to deal with overlooked but critical issues and appeal to the mainstream rather than pandering to single issue pressure groups.

U.S. leaders aid China's rise as a superpower

China is rapidly gaining as a economic and military power at the expense of the American standard of living and national security - thanks to "free trade" policies. William R. Hawkins, a senior fellow for national security studies at the U.S. Business and Industry Council provides analysis of Chinese strategies for global domination.

American Economic Alert
U.S. Corruption and Cowardice Feed the Rise of Superpower China
William R. Hawkins
Monday, July 02, 2007

In T’ai Kung’s ancient work of Chinese strategy, Six Secret Teachings, the king of Chou is given advice on how to defeat the stronger ruler of Shang, “Now on the Tao of planning, thoroughness and secrecy are treasured. You should become involved with him in numerous affairs and ply him with temptations of profit. Conflict will then surely arise.” The same tactic can be used to corrupt the king’s officials, “tempt them with what they find profitable, thereby making them disaffected.”

Modern diplomatic historians call this the “informal penetration” of a rival power. A more common term is “corruption.” To see how such a campaign to further Beijing’s strategic challenge to the United States is orchestrated today, one needs only to look at the U.S. Treasury and its supporters in certain segments of the transnational business community.

The Treasury again refused to formally cite the People’s Republic of China for currency manipulation in is semiannual report to Congress on June 13. It failed to do so for reasons that defy common sense and any realistic assessment of the competitive nature of world trade. The Chinese RMB is considered to be ast least 40 percent undervalued, making China’s exports less expensive and raising the cost of its imports.

It is a major contributing factor in expanding the lop-sided Chinese trade surplus with the United States, which reached $232.5 billion last year.The Treasury report acknowledges “heavy foreign exchange market intervention by China’s central bank to manage the currency tightly,” as well as the fact that China’s currency is “undervalued” in a system where the value is determined by the fiat of the government.

So why does Treasury not hold Beijing responsible for its actions? Treasury made a very subjective decision disguised as a technicality, proffering the astounding claim, “Treasury was unable to determine that China’s exchange rate policy was carried out for the purpose of preventing effective balance of payments adjustment or gaining unfair competitive advantage in international trade.”

China is not intent on using every tactic known to international commercial competition is to grab the largest share of world markets? What planet is Treasury living on? Such a lame excuse for ducking its responsibilities does not just lack credibility, it is completely beyond belief.

When the U.S. Trade Representative filed its case at the World Trade Organization against China for the use of illegal subsidies, the U.S. government had no doubt that Beijing’s intent was to gain advantages in both home and foreign markets. Why is it that Treasury, another cabinet department of the same government does not understand the nature of Beijing’s trade promotion strategy?

The answer is that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is unable to shake his private sector banker’s mindset that views China as a business partner. As CEO of Goldman Sachs, Paulson made a fortune helping Beijing rise in economic power, and he cannot bring himself to confront the monster he helped create. So his department conjures up whatever excuse it can find, no matter how transparently phony, to avoid a confrontation with Beijing.

Treasury’s report claims, “Treasury forcefully raises the Chinese exchange rate regime with Chinese authorities at every available opportunity and will continue to do so” and cites the Strategic Economic Dialogue held last month. But the SED produced nothing, because the Chinese delegation knew that Paulson had no intention of “forcefully” doing anything. At the end of the meeting, Vice Premier Wu Yi called the talks "a complete success" because Paulson, the Bush administration’s China czar, had avoided the "easy resort to threats and sanctions" that would have caused Beijing trouble.

The Treasury report was followed by the USTR’s rejection of a Section 301 petition from a bipartisan group of 42 members of Congress asking the Bush administration to file a complaint at the WTO against China if it doesn't raise the value of the RMB. USTR Susan Schwab’s statement cited the Treasury report’s failure to cite Beijing for currency manipulation, and then repeated USTR’s position that Treasury is the lead agency on this issue.

It is the failure of Treasury to take action, or to even call the situation what it is, that requires Congress to act. Two new pieces of legislation have been introduced in the Senate to address the currency issue. But they are weak, signaling that the Senate has no real stomach for a confrontation with Beijing.

Indeed, the bill introduced by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), with co-sponsors Chuck Grassley R-IA), Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is a major step backward from prior legislation offered by Sens. Schumer and Graham. The Baucus bill (S. 1607) does not take direct action against Beijing’s predatory tactics as did the previous Schumer-Graham bill, which would have imposed a 27.5 percent tariff on Chinese imports if the value of the RMB was not corrected.

The new bill gives Treasury 360 days (!) to continue its dialogue with Beijing, before calling for a case to be filed at the WTO. Going to the WTO would add a year or two before there would be any resolution, even if the United States won. American-based industry cannot stand two or three more years of unchecked Chinese commercial aggression in global markets. The Baucus bill cannot be taken seriously. On the day it was dropped, the most recent news story posted on the Senator’s official website was a photo of Jin Xu, Deputy Director General of China’s Ministry of Commerce. He was speaking at the Montana-China expo, held on May 23.

The other bill, offered by Senators Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Shelby (R-AL), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, is even weaker. It leaves a China-compromised Treasury in charge. The bill seeks to help Treasury cite China for currency manipulation by dropping the “intent” defense, and requires Treasury to go to the International Monetary Fund to complain about currency manipulation. It gives Treasury the authority to file a WTO case if “benchmarks” are not met in nine months.

But the flaw in this approach is not that Treasury officials are not smart enough to know what is going on, but that under Secretary Paulson, they are committed to a policy that benefits China and those corporations that have invested in Beijing’s rise.

Senate cowardice thus falls in the face of Treasury corruption. Beijing is not worried. Even as American officials and politicians were falling over themselves to avoid a confrontation with China, Beijing’s agents were busy shipping weapons to Iran to be sent on to help insurgents and terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan kill U.S. soldiers.

Also on June 13, U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Robert Elder briefed reporters about Chinese “cyber-operations” aimed at high-tech industrial espionage and the penetration of government security agencies. Elder is to head a new cyber command being set up at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana to counter this threat.

On the same day, Richard Lawless, the deputy undersecretary of defense for Asia-Pacific affairs, told the House Armed Services Committee that China was developing a “multi-dimensional counter space capability featuring direct ascent anti-satellite weapons, ground-based lasers, and satellite communications jammers.”

Studies by the Pentagon and the Rand Corporation have detailed how Beijing’s high-tech capabilities have benefitted from foreign investment supported by exports. Francois Jullien, a French scholar of Chinese philosophy, has argued, “Chinese strategy aims to use every possible means to influence the potential inherent in the forces at play to its own advantage, even before the actual engagement.”

Trade is thus not an alternative to conflict, it is part of Beijing’s constant struggle to “rise” and overthrow American preeminence. As Tai Kung advised, “Attack the strong through his strength.”

http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/

Carolina Dem: Stop the Un-"Kind" Farm Bill

Andrew Jackson Democrats http://www.andrewjacksondem.com/ is one of my favorite blogs. The comments by Carolina Dem are always intelligent and fair-minded. I could not resist reprinting a recent post from this great blog about the dangerous farm legislation that is being sponsored by Congressman Ron Kind D-WI. Kind is apparently willing to sacrifice his dairy farmer constituents and eliminate farm subsidies as we know them. This legislation is a slap in the face of rural America and a good example of how some members of Congress can become
representatives from Washington to their constituents rather than the other way around.

Carolina Dem writes:

Farmers and consumers across the country be on notice. Wisconsin Representative Ron Kind, a Democrat, has introduced legislation (H.R. 2720) to end price-based crop subsidies and reduce the $5.2 billion in fixed annual payments that go to grain and cotton farmers.

In place of subsidies, farmers would be allowed to set up IRA-type risk management savings accounts that they could tap in lean years, an idea borrowed from Canada but never popular with U.S. farm groups. The savings from the subsidy cuts - $20 billion over five years - would be put into conservation programs, food stamps and reducing the federal budget deficit.

Kind's legislation is being reviewed by the House Agriculture Committee. Kind argues the demand for biofuels has driven the prices of corn, soybeans and other commodities to the highest levels in a decade, making it harder to justify subsidy programs. He further states the legality of the farm programs under international trade rules have been challenged and may be found to violate agreements with other nations.

Who has the most to lose if this legislation is passed by Congress? The family farmer and the average working American!IRA-like savings accounts protect corporate farmers who can put unlimited funds in their risk management accounts. Under the legislation, money put into these accounts is subject to taxation when farmers withdraw funds; a tax that would disproprotionally affect smaller farmers.

Eliminating farm subsidies would also affect the pocket books of working Americans. We pay relatively low prices at the grocery market because government has committed itself since the New Deal to the American farmer. Placing the control of future market prices in the hands of mega-farm CEO's will bring the same affects on food prices as we see in the oil market.

Government's subsidy program also provides for the buying of surplus agriculture production which in return feeds the nutrional needs of many poor and indigent Americans. If price subsidies are eliminated, market prices will lead to less production and the end to nutritional programs that feed schoolchildren, disabled veterans, etc.

Reform of our farm subsidy program is long overdue, but radically changing the current system to the un-"Kind" proposal by the Wisconsin representative will bring disaster to America's family farmers, consumers, and rural communities. Let us not chance the long-standing, successful program of farm subsidies that has enabled all Americans to prosper for a untried, unfair revolutionary idea that promises to destroy the agriculture production industry in the United States.

http://andrewjacksondem.com/2007/06/26/stop-the-unkind-farm-bill.aspx

Education reform is today's civil rights struggle

The Brown decision changed America for the better but the education reform movement is today's civil rights struggle. If we want to help poor and minority children get a decent education, we must expand charter schools and voucher programs. See link to excellent column by Juan Williams from the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/opinion/29williams.html

Williams writes:

LET us now praise the Brown decision. Let us now bury the Brown decision.

With yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling ending the use of voluntary schemes to create racial balance among students, it is time to acknowledge that Brown’s time has passed. It is worthy of a send-off with fanfare for setting off the civil rights movement and inspiring social progress for women, gays and the poor. But the decision in Brown v. Board of Education that focused on outlawing segregated schools as unconstitutional is now out of step with American political and social realities.

Desegregation does not speak to dropout rates that hover near 50 percent for black and Hispanic high school students. It does not equip society to address the so-called achievement gap between black and white students that mocks Brown’s promise of equal educational opportunity.

And the fact is, during the last 20 years, with Brown in full force, America’s public schools have been growing more segregated — even as the nation has become more racially diverse. In 2001, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that the average white student attends a school that is 80 percent white, while 70 percent of black students attend schools where nearly two-thirds of students are black and Hispanic.

By the early ’90s, support in the federal courts for the central work of Brown — racial integration of public schools — began to rapidly expire. In a series of cases in Atlanta, Oklahoma City and Kansas City, Mo., frustrated parents, black and white, appealed to federal judges to stop shifting children from school to school like pieces on a game board. The parents wanted better neighborhood schools and a better education for their children, no matter the racial make-up of the school. In their rulings ending court mandates for school integration, the judges, too, spoke of the futility of using schoolchildren to address social ills caused by adults holding fast to patterns of residential segregation by both class and race.

The focus of efforts to improve elementary and secondary schools shifted to magnet schools, to allowing parents the choice to move their children out of failing schools and, most recently, to vouchers and charter schools. The federal No Child Left Behind plan has many critics, but there’s no denying that it is an effective tool for forcing teachers’ unions and school administrators to take responsibility for educating poor and minority students.

http://www.nytimes.com/

The solution to inequality in educational opportunities is a fight that must be waged at the local level.

Newark NJ Mayor Corey Booker http://tinyurl.com/3yhb82 is a Democratic school choice proponent working to improve his city's failing school system. Writing in City Journal, Steven Malanga describes Booker's attempts to promote equal opportunity through education reform. http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_cory_booker.html

Malanga writes:

What may be Booker’s greatest challenge is waiting in the wings: reviving Newark’s atrocious school system. Right now, Booker doesn’t have control of the schools; the state took over the Newark system after a damning 1994 investigation found widespread mismanagement and corruption in the elected board of education. Since then, the state, under a court order, has poured billions of dollars into the city’s schools, so that Newark now spends nearly $17,000 per pupil a year—about 75 percent more than the national average.

Yet the money has done little good, since the state has pursued few educational innovations and hasn’t taken on entrenched educational interests (above all, the teachers’ union), which still control much of the system. Student performance has continued to plummet. “High school achievement rates have virtually flipped, from almost 70 percent of graduating Newark kids passing the state’s high school proficiency exam when the state took over, to only about 30 percent passing it now,” says Richard Cammarieri, a member of the Newark schools advisory board. E3 executive director Dan Gaby bluntly describes the system as “in crisis,” estimating that it spends an astonishing $1.3 million for every qualified student it manages to graduate from high school.

Booker’s first order of business if he gets control of the system, which remains an open question, will be to appoint a strong chancellor, along the lines of the Chicago schools chief or New York City schools chancellor. He wants to bring to Newark many of the promising education reforms he sees around the country: closing and replacing chronically failing schools (Newark has some 30 of them), letting parents choose which schools within the system to send their kids to, and inviting more operators of successful private schools into the city to run charter schools. “I have stopped going to lotteries for admission to charter schools because I was so saddened to see parents who have run out of options for their children,” Booker says.

Booker has thrown his weight behind a state bill, sponsored by Democratic legislators, that gives tax credits to companies that contribute to a scholarship fund for Newark students who want to attend private schools or jump to public schools in better-performing districts. Critics, especially the state’s powerful teachers’ union, have branded the scholarship money a surreptitious voucher program that will eventually harm public schools, and the state’s governor, Jon Corzine, has yet to endorse the legislation. But Booker responds: “Who can object to a pool of money that will give poor children the same opportunities as middle-class kids?”

Booker could have even tougher education battles to come, especially in ending seniority rules that allow veteran teachers to pick where they want to work, regardless of performance, and rewriting bureaucratic regulations that make it tough to fire bad educators. “If you can’t change those things, you will fail in any effort to fix this system,” says Gaby.

http://www.city-journal.org/

Educational reform is critical to assuring that our children have equal opportunities regardless of racial or economic background. I think that this statement from Miami's Urban League best sums up why school choice is a matter of basic fairness and common sense.

"The Urban League of Greater Miami opposes the view that all public education dollars must be used in public schools. We do so just as strongly as we have opposed the policy that all public housing dollars be spent on public housing projects, or that all public health dollars go only to public health clinics. These funds are meant to help individuals, not institutions. The citizens should be free to direct them to the best housing, the best doctor, or the best school they can find – whether public or private."

http://tinyurl.com/37jjpy

Blue Dog Caucus wrong to reject Nancy Boyda

As a grassroots Blue Dog, I am annoyed and disgusted by the decision of the Congressional Blue Dogs to exclude conservative Democrat Nancy Boyda of Kansas from membership. http://tinyurl.com/2b64g3 Boyda is a fiscal conservative and a strong supporter of gun rights. She has been a outspoken voice in the fight for border security and against amnesty for illegal aliens. http://tinyurl.com/38axj2 The excuse given for failing to admit Boyda is that the Blue Dog Coalition has a membership cap of 47. Of course, the Blue Dog Caucus could have lifted the cap and allowed Boyda to join. Common sense would suggest that accepting Boyda into membership would help to provide further gender and geographic balance within the Blue Dog Caucus.

The fact that the Blue Dogs would decline to accept Nancy Boyda's application proves that most members of the caucus are little more than self-serving, power-hungry jackasses. Some of the Blue Dog Caucus members are true populists but many are simply shills for big business interests. In refusing to admit Boyda, Congressional Blue Dog Caucus members are showing that they are more interested in their own personal power than rebuilding the moderate-conservative wing of the Democratic Party.

NY Times: A Liberal Explains His Rejection of Same Sex Marriage

Saturday's New York Times has an article written by Peter Steinfels about pro-family progressive David Blankenhorn and his reasons for opposing same sex marriage. Blankenhorn does not buy into the argument that gay marriage would strengthen marriage as an institution and believes that such trends are not in the best interest of America's children.

I agree with Blankenhorn. The primary purpose of the state regulation of marriage is to provide a stable environment for the rearing of children. As a general rule, children do tend to fare better in all areas of their life when raised by a mother and a father.

Blankenhorn is President of the Institute for American Values http://www.americanvalues.org/ which is a non-profit think tank dedicated to strengthening families and civil society in the U.S. and the world.

A Liberal Explains His Rejection of Same-Sex Marriage

By PETER STEINFELS
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/us/23beliefs.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

June 23, 2007

Could legalizing same-sex marriage actually strengthen marriage as a social institution? "If I could believe this," writes David Blankenhorn, "I would support gay marriage without reservation."

Mr. Blankenhorn is a self-described liberal Democrat and "marriage nut," a veteran leader in the movement to strengthen marriage, and especially fatherhood, in the United States.

His book, "The Future of Marriage," published last month by Encounter Books, explains why he doesn't believe same-sex marriage will serve that cause. But given the charged nature of the subject, his book may also set a record for optimism about the human capacity for rational discussion.

Mr. Blankenhorn, who opposes same-sex marriage, believes that the national debate about the issue can be rescued from the polarized clash of gut reactions, religious injunctions, emotional appeals and accusations of bigotry. He even believes the debate could provide "an invaluable opportunity for Americans to have a serious national discussion about marriage's meaning and future."

The problem with that debate until now, as he sees it, is that "almost always, the main focus is 'gay,' not 'marriage.' "

Mr. Blankenhorn cites what he calls the "wafer-thin" definitions of marriage that increasingly turn up in court decisions and polemical articles about same-sex ties: "a unique expression of a private bond and profound love"; "a private arrangement between parties committed to love"; "the exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other."

Some of this commitment talk sounds sweet, and some of it, like "committed, interdependent partnerships between consenting adults," sounds more like a real estate transaction than a marriage. But for Mr. Blankenhorn, these definitions miss the point. He is amused, for instance, at their neo-Victorian avoidance of any mention of sex. Similarly, these definitions dodge any mention of children and parenthood. They emphasize marriage as private and too diverse ("unique") to be pinned down.

On the contrary, Mr. Blankenhorn writes, marriage is a "social institution," a set of shared understandings and public meanings that shape expectations and conduct. Marriage has evolved and, yes, may be "constantly evolving"; here Mr. Blankenhorn moves through biology, prehistory, history and anthropology, from ancient Mesopotamia to the Trobriand Islands. But marriage fundamentally involves sexual intercourse and the affiliation - emotionally, practically and legally - between any child created and both parents.

"If this book had a subtitle," Mr. Blankenhorn writes, "it would be 'An Argument About Institutions.' " He captures his ideas of marriage as an institution with a quotation from a wedding sermon that the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer sent to a young couple from his Nazi prison cell. Bonhoeffer, soon to be executed for his role in a plot against Hitler, wrote, "It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love."

Mr. Blankenhorn readily admits that the "deinstitutionalization" of marriage that he fears - the redefinition of what he considers the nation's "most pro-child institution" as a private adult relationship stripped of public meaning - has been under way for a long time. Deeply rooted in American individualism and the quest for self-fulfillment, that redefinition "has been growing for decades, propagated overwhelmingly by heterosexuals." Same-sex marriage only further erodes marriage as a pro-child institution, he believes.

Mr. Blankenhorn wishes it weren't so. Unlike many other opponents of same-sex marriage, he explicitly recognizes the rights and needs of gay men and lesbians to be respected and accepted and to form "loving, stable partnerships."

The debate is not "a simple issue of good versus bad," he writes. "The real conflict is between one good and another: the equal dignity of all persons and the worth of homosexual love, versus the flourishing of children. On each side, the threat to something important is real. It wastes everyone's time to pretend that this question is an easy one, and that only bad people can fail to see the right answer."

Is this conflict really as inescapable as Mr. Blankenhorn believes? Jonathan Rauch, for one, doubts it, as the title of his book, "Gay Marriage: Why It is Good for Gays, Good for Straights and Good for America," suggests. In his book, published by Times Books in 2004, Mr. Rauch argues that legalizing same-sex marriage will actually "shore up marriage's unique but eroding status."

"How I wish he were right!" Mr. Blankenhorn replies. He contrasts Mr. Rauch's views with those of numerous social scientists and legal theorists who have long been critics of marriage and now suddenly support same-sex marriage precisely because they believe it will destabilize and "deconstruct" what they consider an oppressive institution.

At this point, one wonders whether academic ideology and legal theory aren't upstaging the lived experiences of gay and lesbian couples. But as long as the movement for same-sex marriage takes place largely in the courts rather than legislatures (New York could prove to be a significant exception), academic ideology and legal theory will inevitably weigh heavily.

Meanwhile, Mr. Blankenhorn hopes his book will stimulate "a better conversation" between opponents and proponents of same-sex marriage. In a phone interview Thursday, he said his own recognition of "many good reasons to support gay marriage" had been matched by some proponents' recognition of "legitimate reasons to be concerned" and that, therefore, "being opposed to gay marriage is not necessarily the expression of bigotry."

"Anything that causes an interesting new conversation where both sides recognize the validity of some of the other side's concerns," he said, "who knows, maybe an interesting new dynamic could emerge."

In fact, "The Future of Marriage" may have much to say to many others who, like Mr. Blankenhorn, oppose same-sex marriage. It could be profitably read, for example, by the many conservative allies, especially religious ones, that Mr. Blankenhorn has earned through his work on behalf of strengthening the family.

His book does not explicitly address these allies, some of whom have been as adamant in declaring support for same-sex marriage morally unthinkable as supporters have been adamant in treating opposition as reactionary. "I didn't want to start finger-pointing and set myself up as an arbiter of who is a bigot," Mr. Blankenhorn said. "I wanted to model a different way of arguing."

That way of arguing concludes with his own list of proposals, including government assistance, not for fighting same-sex marriage but simply for strengthening marriage as an institution.

"To the degree that it makes any sense to oppose gay marriage," he writes, "it makes sense only if one also opposes with equal clarity and intensity the other main trends pushing our society toward post-institutional marriage."

http://www.nytimes.com/