South Dakota Politics

The Party of McGovern

Chicago Tribune:

Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday attacked Democratic leaders as the intellectual heirs to Sen. George McGovern's "far left" anti-war policies of the Vietnam era and warned that withdrawal from Iraq could result in the descent of that country into a new version of Taliban-era Afghanistan.

Cheney, in remarks to the funders and board members of the conservative Heritage Foundation in Chicago, said "history is repeating itself," with Democrats moving away from a commitment to fighting international terrorism.

"Today, on some of the most critical issues facing the country, the new Democratic majority resembles nothing so much as that old party of the early 1970s," he said, citing issues including taxes and spending, but especially foreign policy.

SDP Jazz Note: The Greatest Jazz You Never Heard

Nothing has done more to encourage my interest in Jazz, not to mention my purchase of Jazz CDs, as two podcasts: In the Groove by Ken Laster, and Straight No Chaser, by Jeffrey Siegel.  Both podcasts put a load of excellent jazz on every week or so.  I am sure the record companies are nervous about this, but I have bought a lot of cds because of what I heard on these two podcasts. 

One contemporary Alto Sax player frequently included in Laster's podcasts is Greg Abate [pronounced a-ba-tay].  I bought his CD Monsters in the Night after listening to one cut on In The Groove while I was mowing the lawn.  The compositions and arrangements are superb.  Jazz is much given to hero worship, and I am guilty of this.  Abate is one of the unsung heroes of jazz.  But by God his alto sings. 

I weigh in on Imus

A lot of online commentary on the Imus drubbing begins like this: "I don't listen to Imus, but ..."  I am not about to buck that trend!  I have never listened to Imus either on the radio or online.  I have some sense of his style only from clips that appeared on other venues.  Here are some points that come to mind from his disaster.

1.  Imus's firing does not involve the issue of free speech.  Imus was canned first by MSNBC and then by CBS.  These are not government agencies, they are private corporations, and can hire or fire who they want for cause. The first amendment does not apply to them.

2.  Hip Hop culture is surely full of despicable sentiments and language, and maybe something ought to be done about that.  But Imus wasn't Snoop Dog, he was a radio host.  There is no reason to assume that the same standards apply.  It is precisely by having different standards for such things as music and radio journalism that we square responsible standards with freedom. 

3.  What Imus said was ugly and deplorable, but I am a little nervous about firing people whose job it is to talk incessantly over one small phrase.  Still . . .

4.  Political culture is all about setting limits to what can be said without facing ostracism.  Imus crossed the line.  He can't be thrown into the slammer.  That would be a threat to freedom of speech.  But CBS is free to disassociate itself from him.  That is the only way, in a free republic, to enforce standards of decency. 

5.  Imus's downfall is bad news for Democrats.  He provided one place that someone like Christopher Dodd, who announced his campaign for President before Imus, could reach a lot of White Males.  Too bad for Dodd. 

6.  Imus is surely not done.  Given his audience, someone will pick him up. 

Ethanol

See this story in the Rapid City Journal about VeraSun expanding its ethanol production facilities:

VeraSun Energy Corp., one the nation’s largest ethanol producers, is boosting its capacity by about a third with the early opening of its third biorefinery, the company announced Thursday.

When the Charles City, Iowa, plant reaches full production within 45 days, it will be able to produce 110 million gallons of ethanol each year using more than 39 million bushels of corn. The plant will also yield 350,000 tons of dried distillers grains, a byproduct of the ethanol process used as an animal feed ingredient, said Don Endres, VeraSun’s chairman and chief executive officer.

VeraSun operates near-identical ethanol plants in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and in Aurora, just a few miles from the company’s Brookings headquarters. By building each plant with the same size vessels, tanks and rail loading docks, the company can share procedures, staff and spare parts, Endres said during a telephone interview Thursday.

“We’re setting them up so they operate alike, they run alike, they perform alike,” he said. “And we think long-term that will allow our business to run more efficiently with common facilities.”

The Charles City opening, nearly three months ahead of schedule, boosts the company’s production capacity to about 340 million gallons per year.

VeraSun has two additional plants under construction in Hartley, Iowa, and Welcome, Minn., which will increase its annual capacity to about 560 million gallons. The company is expected to announce the site for its sixth biorefinery this quarter, Endres said.

All of VeraSun’s plants produce dried distillers grains, but the company eventually plans to extract oil from the grains to also produce biodiesel.

Thune: The GOP's Obama?

From KOTA News:

John Quinn remembers 1968 like it was yesterday.  The Yale graduate and rising Republican political advisor had a hunch about a young Congressman from the state of Texas.  Quinn thought a lot of the man and his talent and potential.  Quinn thought he could even win the presidency someday, so he set up a meeting to tell him so.  The Congressman's name?

"George Herbert Walker Bush." 

Forty years later, Quinn says the name, smiling the smile of proven history and of wisened political acumen that tells you his days of hunches and of fulfilled political promise aren't close to running out.  After serving as an advisor to the Nixon White House and working on four other Presidential Campaigns, the university professor from Rapid City has another hunch these days.  This time, about a young Senator from the upper midwest.  A man Quinn believes holds all the star power, conviction and appeal to make a similar run for the G.O.P.-- South Dakota U.S. Senator John Thune.

"He is young.  He is articulate.  He is tall, slender and well spoken,"  Quinn says, laying out a description of Thune that is intentionally and eerily familiar to that of another player on the political scene.

"Thune could very well be the Republican counterpoint to Barack Obama," Quinn says.

Read the whole thing.

Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi's First 100 Days.

Insty

Instapundit:  "MICHELLE MALKIN GETS CALLED A "PROSTITUTE" ON THE AIR:  No doubt there will be an Imus-like groundswell of outrage."  I've neglected to comment on the Imus story because it doesn't interest me.  I've never listened to Imus, his comments were disgraceful, but I didn't feel the need to join in the pile-on.  However, I wonder, like Prof. Reynolds, if the outrage he received will go across the board.

Bull Durham

I have never seen anything quite like the drubbing that North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper gave Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong over the Duke Lacrosse case.  See USAToday.  In case you missed it, a Black woman accused three Duke Lacrosse players of rape during an off campus party, about a year ago.  The press jumped on this story with reckless enthusiasm, as did the Duke University faculty.  It now seems clear that DA Nifong saw it as a way to attract Black votes in a tight re-election campaign.  It worked for Nifong in the short run: he won his race. 

Unfortunately for Nifong, the rape never happened.  The supposed victim's story was shot full of holes.  Nifong had every reason to know this early in the game.  But he went so far as to conceal DNA evidence from the defense, for which reason he is likely to be disbarred.  When NC Attorney General Cooper announced yesterday that all charges against the Duke players were to be dropped, he declared them to be innocent of the charges.  He went on.  When he was finished with Nifong, there wasn't enough left of the Durham DA to bury in a coke spoon. 

Rape is a terrible crime.  Racism is a terrible motive.  It is just as terrible to try to railroad innocent people for political advantage. 

Al Qaeda Claims Credit for Parliament Bombing

From Time:

In an assault apparently aimed at chilling negotiations between the Iraqi government and a faction of the insurgency, the Iraqi Parliament, located in Baghdad's high-security Green Zone, suffered a bomb attack. An official at the Ministry of the Interior told TIME that the bomber was wearing a suicide vest and was likely a guard for one of the members of parliament. The blast went off just after 2 p.m. on Thursday at the cafe in the central atrium of the building just outside the main hall where politicians, staff and journalists often meet for a cup of tea or a plate of food from a buffet spread. Eight people were killed — including three members of parliament — and dozens wounded in the blast.

Two secondary bombs were found, apparently set to mow down those fleeing the initial blast, said the Interior Ministry official. One was in a briefcase inside the building, he said, and another in the parking lot outside. One of the detection machines leading into the Baghdad Convention Center, where Parliament is housed, was not operating Thursday, said the official, who was suspicious of a wider plot. U.S. forces have sealed off the building and are conducting an investigation into the blast. Two weeks ago, Coalition forces found two suicide vests inside the Green Zone and there was speculation about the presence of a third in the area.

Within an hour of the explosion, a message from the al-Qaeda-controlled Islamic State in Iraq was posted on a prominent militant website, muslm.net, calling the blast a "message" to anyone who cooperates with "the occupier and its agents." It said ominously, "We will reach you wherever you are"

Power Line has a video of the bombing from the inside, as a parliament member was being interviewed.  Richard Miniter was at the parliament when the bomb when off, and you can find his first-hand account here.

Presidential Polling

This Los Angeles Times story reports the latest polling numbers for the Republican presidential primaries.  The poll shows that Rudy Giuliani maintains his lead, while Fred Thompson has eased ahead of John McCain.  Excerpt:

Sen. John McCain, once considered the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has fallen to third place in a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, and is running behind Fred Thompson, an actor and former senator who has not even entered the race.

Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani leads the crowded field of announced and potential contenders with support from 29% of probable Republican primary voters surveyed, followed by Thompson with 15% and McCain with 12%. Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and a fundraising powerhouse, had 8%.

The Arizona senator's showing in the poll is his lowest in any national survey to date, marking a new benchmark in his flagging fortunes. The surge of interest in Thompson is a sign of conservative dissatisfaction with the established field of candidates and underscores just how unsettled the Republican race remains.

Obit Blogging: Kurt Vonnegut

The New York Times:

Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Cat’s Cradle” and “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan. He was 84 and had homes in Manhattan and in Sagaponack on Long Island.

Mr. Vonnegut suffered irreversible brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago, according to his wife, Jill Krementz.

Mr. Vonnegut wrote plays, essays and short fiction. But it was his novels that became classics of the American counterculture, making him a literary idol, particularly to students in the 1960s and ’70s. Dog-eared paperback copies of his books could be found in the back pockets of blue jeans and in dorm rooms on campuses throughout the United States.

Like Mark Twain, Mr. Vonnegut used humor to tackle the basic questions of human existence: Why are we in this world? Is there a presiding figure to make sense of all this, a god who in the end, despite making people suffer, wishes them well?

He also shared with Twain a profound pessimism. “Mark Twain,” Mr. Vonnegut wrote in his 1991 book, “Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage,” “finally stopped laughing at his own agony and that of those around him. He denounced life on this planet as a crock. He died.”

The Return of Tom Daschle

Denise Ross:

I’ve been waiting for the Beltway journalist who would make the Obama-Rouse-Daschle connection. It is Howard Fineman in a Newsweek piece titled “The Return of Tom Daschle.”

Of course Daschle never left. It’s just that somebody finally noticed he is a key ingredient in Barack Obama’s success so far as a presidential contender. (Fineman calls Daschle et al “the secret sauce” in the Obama operation.)

It all started with Pete Rouse, who had been Daschle’s chief of staff and a loyal aide throughout his congressional career.

Rouse, who has known Daschle for 30 years, was Obama’s first and most important congressional hire.

I was always intrigued by Rouse’s decision to leave the ornate and vital Senate leadership office in the Capitol to be chief of staff to a junior senator in nice but un-grand quarters when the fat paychecks of K Street would be so easy to pick up.

Fineman reports that Daschle advised Rouse to take the K Street route. That Rouse did not follow his old boss’s advice could land Daschle the VP job, Fineman says. That’s after Daschle lent Obama much-needed credibility with an endorsement and is about to help even more with fund-raising.

It has been a street that runs both ways.

Interestingly – tellingly – it was Obama who reached out to Daschle. In 2004, Obama was cruising to an easy victory in the Illinois Senate race, and had a lot of unused cash on hand. He gave a lot of it – some $85,000 – to Daschle …

Now Daschle and Obama talk regularly – the two have had a number of quiet dinners – and Daschle will soon be playing a major role on the campaign trail …

I can see him being especially helpful in Iowa …

If Obama wins the nomination, Daschle will be a top contender for running mate. … George W. Bush chose a congressional veteran from a sparsely-populated state as his reassuringly experienced running mate. Is Tom Daschle the Democratic answer to Dick Cheney? Then Daschle would be back, big time.

So, no more unscheduled driving tours, then? Just send us a postcard once in awhile.

Tim Johnson, Stephanie Herseth, and South Dakota Politics

The net is buzzing about a list presented by Karl Rove of the top twenty vulnerable House Republicans and the top twenty "targeted" Democrats (see TPMCafe).  Stephanie Herseth is apparently number 20 on the list.

My first inclination is to say that if Herseth is on it, Rove must be having a terrible time coming up with a plausible list.  If Herseth runs for re-election, I just can't see anyone beating her.  But that "if" is intriguing.  Why might she not run?  I have been hearing rumors (second hand, mind you) that she really wants to run for Governor.  That office is a hard nut to crack for Democrats, but if they want to build the party in state it's vital to not always concede it to the Republicans.  According to Rumor, Herseth wants to be back home, her father along with a lot of in state Democrats want her to replace Rounds.

An alternative reason that Herseth might not run is that she is running for Senate.  I have been saying for some time that I do not believe Tim Johnson will run for office again.  I have no knowledge of his condition at all, but I have met him, respect him, and I do not believe that he is crazy.  Only a crazy person, having had his brush with disaster, would want to go back to the Senate.  I also think that the fact that he is being kept so completely under wraps supports the view that his health would not support a run at the present moment.  The Democrats are shrewdly insisting that he will run because it heads off strong fund raising on the Republican's part.  That won't last forever.

So I think that there will be an open U.S. Senate seat in South Dakota in 08.  The Republicans may be targeting Herseth's seat because they are pretty sure she won't be sitting in it come November of next year.  If there is a Senate race, the likely Republican to square off against Herseth would of course be Governor Rounds.  I think he wins, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. 

If Herseth does have to choose between running for Senate or Governor, I expect she will end up doing the former.  Whatever personal or familial pressures there will be to run for state office, the Democratic National Party will surely bring all its weight to bear to keep that Senate seat.  Besides, the State House is probably the one seat that Herseth stands the best chance of losing.  If she did run and come up short, the Republicans might well get the U.S. Senate and House Seats, and keep the state house.   That would be a disaster for the SD Democratic party.  I would put my money on a Senate run.  But either way, South Dakota is going to be an every more interesting place than usual.

On the chances of such a race, see The New York Times and our neighbor in the local blogosphere, South Dakota War College. I think I actually scooped Pat Powers.   Here is the NYT's take:

While neither Johnson nor a surrogate has officially declared that the senator will seek re-election, he is expected to do so if his health continues to improve.  “It’s not a firm decision, but he was very enthusiastic about running before all this happened,” Johnson spokeswoman Julianne Fisher told CQPolitics.com.

Also see Jason's Post below.

More Evidence of Global Warming

Aberdeen, April 11th, 2007.

Democrats Outfox Themselves

Democratic Presidential front runners have found a way to appease their activist base.  All it cost them was an insult to the party's most loyal constituency.  This is how the Chicago Tribune puts it:

The three top Democratic presidential candidates -- Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards -- have declined to participate in an autumn presidential debate for the frailest of reasons: because one co-sponsor is TV's conservative-leaning Fox News. (The other sponsor is the Congressional Black Caucus Institute.)  . . .

[H]ere's what candidates look like when they attempt to choose which reporters are worthy to question them: fragile, egocentric and frightened of tough questions.  That's not how a prospective president of the United States wants to come across.

   Are there unfair questions? Sure. Do journalists on Fox -- and elsewhere -- get stories wrong? Of course. But Clinton, Obama and Edwards aren't running for board seats at the Mosquito Abatement District. They're running to be the most powerful leader in the world. They shouldn't dodge questioners who aren't handpicked and pre-adoring.

The Trib's criticism is a bit misleading because their motive isn't really to avoid tough questioning by Fox reporters.  It is, as I have said, a desire to publicly grovel before the Daily KOS lest the latter open up a fresh can of Howard Dean on 'em. Here is the Wall Street Journal on the topic:

Liberal activists are livid, to say the least, with one anti-Fox pressure group condemning the Black Caucus for "dancing with the devil." Color of Change, a coalition of black online activists, says the collaboration promulgates "bigoted, hate-filled worldviews." Markos Moulitsas, the DailyKos front man, calls the CBC "corrupt and compromised" for "doing Fox's bidding." His implication is that Black Caucus Members have somehow been bought off, though there is no evidence to support the slur. This is to say nothing of some of the more vicious blog chatter, much of it carrying racial connotations.

 

What the Kosacks really believe is that the conservative position is not merely wrong, it is illegitimate.  Conservatives have no right to be part of the public debate, or to serve as journalists, because they are bad, bad people.  That the three leading contenders for the Democratic nomination go along with this, without a whimper of challenge, insulting the Congressional Black Caucus as the same time, suggests how illiberal liberal activistism has become.

Appellate Court to Revisit Abortion Issue

The New York Times:

A South Dakota law that would require doctors to tell women seeking abortions that the procedure would “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being” will be revisited today by the 11 judges of the federal appeals court in St. Louis.

The statute is among many abortion laws around the country requiring counseling and consent. Such laws have been upheld in the Supreme Court and in federal appeals courts, but a federal judge has blocked South Dakota’s law while she considers its constitutionality.

The appeals court hearing is a second take on an October decision by a three-judge panel of the same body, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, that the law should remain blocked because it supplements factual information with a value judgment. The full Eighth Circuit court, acting on an appeal by the state, agreed to reconsider whether to allow the law to take effect.

Woof!

The newest member of the Schaff household.  Her name is Kayla and she comes to us via the Aberdeen Humane Society.

Latest Gas News

A new government report suggests gas prices won't be as high this summer as some (including me) have feared. 

The latest forecast calls for prices to peak with an average $2.87 a gallon for the month of May, then decline nationally. Last summer's peak was an average of $2.98 for the month of July.

''We think the forecast is about on track,'' said Geoff Sundstrom, a spokesman for the American Automobile Association. He said based on current market trends he doesn't see another summer of $3 gasoline nationwide.

This prediction assumes no major crisis in the Middle East.  Fingers crossed! 

Johnson's Political Future

Here's a story from the New York Times (originally from CQPolitics) about Senator Tim Johnson entitled "Johnson's Political Future Stirs Speculation - And Fundraising."   The NYT says that a lot of big-name Democrats are helping raise money for an expected Johnson re-election bid in 2008.  The story also notes some names on both sides of the aisle that might try and replace Johnson if he decides not to run.  Excerpt:

As Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., continues a long rehabilitation following brain surgery four months ago, Democrats and Republicans continue to ruminate on the unusual political situation — including who might run for the seat next year.

Johnson has not voted in the Senate this year, but he has been getting up to speed at an undisclosed rehabilitation facility. And his re-election campaign is well under way: While neither Johnson nor a surrogate has officially declared that the senator will seek re-election, he is expected to do so if his health continues to improve.

“It’s not a firm decision, but he was very enthusiastic about running before all this happened,” Johnson spokeswoman Julianne Fisher told CQPolitics.com.

It is not clear when he will return to Washington, but big-name Democrats are helping raise money for Johnson as he continues to recover. His seat could be pivotal in the 2008 campaign for the Senate, which Democrats operationally control by a 51-49 margin.

Montana Sen. Max Baucus organized a fundraising committee — The Baucus-Johnson Victory Fund — in January to help raise money for Johnson. Fisher said Democratic senators have held a dozen fundraisers for Johnson since the senator suffered a brain hemorrhage last December. They include Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada; New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee; Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts; Evan Bayh of Indiana; and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico.

The extent of this early surrogate fundraising will be known by April 15, the deadline for Johnson’s campaign to submit campaign finance reports that detail receipts and expenditures in the first three months of this year.

Check out the whole article.

UPDATE:  The Yankton Press & Dakota also has a story today about Johnson's fundraising.

The Cube and the Cathedral

George Weigel wrote this book discussing the secularization of Europe and its contribution to the death of European/Western Civilization.  Joe Knippenberg asks whether Pope Benedict XVI is fighting a losing battle to re-Catholicize Europe and if evangelical Christianity might not be the more hopeful route for rebuilding the Church (most broadly speaking) in Europe.  While not disagreeing with Joe, let me posit some ideas as to why he might be too quick to dismiss the Holy Father's ambitious project.

One could argue theologically, namely that the Catholic Church is the best avenue for evangelizing Europe because its doctrine is most sound.  Catholic Schaff and Protestant Knippenberg will have to agree to disagree on that, I suppose.  Joe, I suspect, is more interested in practical reasons why in spite of its"rigid hierarchy,"  Catholicism can still be attractive to Europeans.   Let me suggest that a continent foundering in nihilism might just need the firm direction that the Catholic Church provides.  Secondly, the Catholic Church allows enough autonomy to local bishops to lead me to think that Joe's description of the hierarchy as "rigid" is a bit unfair.  No doubt on doctrinal issues, Rome rules, but it is just this sort of thing where I find evangelical churches most lacking.  They tend to be pastor centered, leading to "cult of personality" issues and a lack of consistency on doctrine that undermines attempts at unity.  Lastly, the Catholic Church has been the great defender of reason on the Continent.  It's theological rigor may make it more attractive to Europeans than the more emotionally based evangelical churches.  In documents like John Paul II's Fides et Ratio and Benedict's own famous speech at Regensburg, the Catholic Church has lead the way in defending reason against its post-modern opponents and applying reason to theological issues. The Catholic Church is one of the last redoubts of classical rationalism, which I think protects it against the deals with modernity (individualism and easiness with consumerism) that sometimes inhabit evangelical realms.  The Catholic Church is the counter-cultural force that can most ably offset the growing nihilism of the West. 

This is my brief, although I take Joe's arguments to heart.  I recently read Martin Gilbert's biography of Winston Churchill.  Churchill's faith in Western Civilization, especially the English speaking part of it, is inspiring.  Part of that grand history is the history of Christianity.  A post-Christian Europe is already well on the way to decay.  If the evangelicals can save Christianity in Europe, and thus help save Western Civilization, then I wish them God's speed.

Update: Joe responds. 

Approval Ratings for President and Congress

Here are the latest RCP averages:

President Bush Job Approval

RCP Average

Approve

36.5%

Disapprove

60.3%

Spread -23.8%

Congressional Job Approval

RCP Average

Approve

35.0%

Disapprove

55.8%

Spread -20.8%

I anxiously await Chad telling me why the bad news only counts when its bad for Republicans.  Meanwhile, check this interesting feature out from AOL News.  What they show is that Bush's low spell isn't all that unusual. 

Is Anyone Surprised?

Slashdot:  "Results from energy companies are coming in, and the word is that moving Daylight Saving Time forward three weeks had no measurable impact on power consumption. The attempt by the US Congress to make it look like they were doing something about the energy crisis has been exposed as the waste it is."  This was under a Republican Congress, mind you.  HT to tdaxp.

Media Bias

Power Line:  Media Bias:  How It Works

Rumor Central

Rumor has it that a Starbucks is moving into the new strip mall in front of the Super Wal-Mart in Aberdeen.  As I understand it Starbucks is one of the "good" chain stores with good pay and benefits for the employees.  This is also the kind of business you get when a small town accepts the progress represented by Wal-Mart/Super Wal-mart.  I recall Mayor Leveson predicting just this sort of thing when the Super Wal-Mart moved in because many businesses follow the lead of Wal-Mart.  Let's wait and see.  Right now this Starbucks thing is just a rumor.  Now if we can only get a decent bookstore and an Olive Garden (that's right America, Olive Garden would represent significant progress in Aberdeen cuisine).  A boy can dream. 

Administration Buzz Word of the Week

In case you hadn't noticed, the Bush administration has a new favorite word.  From the Examiner:

The White House says the economic surge that began five and a half years ago on President Bush's watch is more robust than the much-touted expansion during the Clinton administration.

I am not sure if it's really good strategy to link the Presiden't economic policy with his policy in Iraq.  But it is a robust word.  Robust, by the way, was the buzz word of the 1990's. 

Job Growth Far Exceeds Expectations

So goes the LATimes head.  Ah, it seems like only yesterday that our friends at CCK were running post after post about how bad the economy was.  Not that it wasn't growing at a robust rate, or that lots of new jobs were appearing;  it was and they were.  But wage growth was slower than at that stage of previous recoveries.  That despicable George W.!  For some reason we haven't heard much from CCK on the economy lately.  Maybe the LATimes can guess why.

The 180,000 jobs gained last month, the biggest increase in three months, handily beat the 130,000 expected by the consensus forecast of private economists. The unemployment rate slid by one-tenth of a point to 4.4%, equaling its recent low of last October. Joblessness hasn't been lower since May 2001, just before the last recession.

Not bad.  And what about wages?

Wages, which initially lagged behind job growth as the economy recovered from its 2001 recession, continued their more recent growth — good news for workers but not so good for inflation prospects.

Average hourly earnings of production workers increased by 6 cents to $17.22, and weekly earnings rose by $3.75 to $583.76. Over the last year, hourly earnings have risen by 4% and weekly earnings by 4.4%.

Thus, earnings are rising faster than price inflation, which, excluding food and energy, rose 2.4% in the most recent 12 months.

More on Pelosi

The Morning Call:  "Speaker Pelosi's adventure in Damascus has cost her a lot of political capital"

Crawford Peace House

Associated Press:

With allegations of money mismanagement, threats of court action and some members leaving, a group that has sponsored war protests in President's adopted hometown has been anything but peaceful.

The Crawford Peace House recently lost its corporate charter with the state, and a former member who now has rights to the name is threatening legal action because the group continues operating.

Sara L. Oliver and some others are calling for a state investigation as to why only $14,700 is now in its bank account, saying tens of thousands donated during Cindy Sheehan's 2005 war protest are unaccounted for.

Even More Pelosi

My esteemed former colleague, Professor David Newquist, has this about a bit of news that is not to his liking.

And all the furor about Nancy Pelosi's stop in Syria while she is touring the Middle East reflects nothing more than the inane, petty, and malevolent depths in which our political system has become mired.

But it turns out that the "inane, petty, and malevolent depths" has swallowed up pretty much every organ of the responsible press that Professor Newquist is usually at pains to defend.  My SDP colleague Jason Heppler cites USAToday in criticism of Ms. Pelosi.  I noted the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post, neither of which are exactly bastions of conservatism.  Apparently the "inane, petty, and malevolent" include pretty much everybody except David.  And apparently the Lebanon Daily Star is also under the thumb of the Orwellian American state.  You'd think that the Lebanese would be worth listening to, but David doesn't think so.

Nancy Pelosi will be vilified.  But she has done nothing but exercise her rights and responsibilities.

Well, yes.  Speaker Pelosi has every right to make an ass of herself, as nearly everyone admits she did in Syria.  Michael Barone at Real Clear Politics puts it nicely:

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos, who accompanied Pelosi, has defended her without addressing the Post's conclusion about her claims to have set Israel and Syria on "a road to peace." In USA Today, he noted that she "publicly declared that she supports the administration's goals regarding Syria." He said he and she are "convinced that direct communication with Syria's leader cannot worsen Syrian behavior. Rather, over time, it may just lead to improvement."

That's dubious. Coming in "friendship" to Damascus may make Assad more confident he has a free hand in Lebanon, and "may just" doesn't sound very promising. But the bigger issue here is the thinking that gave Pelosi confidence she could produce progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

At the heart of that thinking is this proposition: We're the problem. America, or rather George W. Bush, is the problem. We're not doing enough to get the Israelis and Syrians together; we're not doing enough to address the grievances of the Palestinian people (than whom "nobody is suffering more," according to Barack Obama); we're not doing enough to mollify the dictators who are working against us.

Pelosi and Lantos and Obama and Newquist have every right to criticize George W.  But maybe there are a few other problems in the world.  Ms. Pelosi's problem was that she can't see that. 

 

The Human Cost of Immigration

From The Onion. 

Headlines Worth Noting

Earl Grey now homeless.

Fire destroys Tea home

Well, it was at least an accomplice.

Cruise Ship Captain Blames Sea for Sinking

New time try the shower.

Motorcyclist Injured After Hitting Bathtub on Louisiana Interstate

No!  Ya think?

Rabbits in a breeding boom

More evidence of global warming:

Cold snap chills much of nation

Sam Fox

Jules Crittenden: "If it’s wrong for the president to fire political appointees over their politics, doesn’t that make it wrong for senators to oppose political appointees over theirs? Wait a minute. I’m getting confused. The president fired them over their performance, but the Senate only gave a damn about Fox’s politics. So much crap flying around these days, its hard to sort out what’s what. But I think the Dem Cong might need to start holding hearings about itself."

More Pelosi

Another bad review for Pelosi in the Lebanon Daily Star:

We can thank the US speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for having informed Syrian President Bashar Assad, from Beirut, that "the road to solving Lebanon's problems passes through Damascus." Now, of course, all we need to do is remind Pelosi that the spirit and letter of successive United Nations Security Council resolutions, as well as Saudi and Egyptian efforts in recent weeks, have been destined to ensure precisely the opposite: that Syria end its meddling in Lebanese affairs.

Pelosi embarked on a fool's errand to Damascus this week, and among the issues she said she would raise with Assad - when she wasn't on the Lady Hester Stanhope tour in the capital of imprisoned dissidents Aref Dalila, Michel Kilo, and Anwar Bunni - is "the role of Syria in supporting Hamas and Hizbullah." What the speaker doesn't seem to have realized is that if Syria is made an obligatory passage in American efforts to address the Lebanese crisis, then Hizbullah will only gain. Once Assad is re-anointed gatekeeper in Lebanon, he will have no incentive to concede anything, least of all to dilettantes like Pelosi, on an organization that would be Syria's enforcer in Beirut if it could re-impose its hegemony over its smaller neighbor.

Read it all.  Robert F. Turner wonders if Pelosi's visit was illegal.

UPDATE:  USA Today:  "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi crossed a line this week by visiting Syria, where she met with President Bashar Assad. She violated a long-held understanding that the United States should speak with one official voice abroad -- even if the country is deeply divided on foreign policy back home. . . . It's not up to the speaker to unfreeze relations with Assad."

UPDATE II:  Speaking of bad diplomacy and my remark below about Jimmy Carter as the master of bad diplomacy, see this: "Anybody would want a second chance after having worked as an assistant to Jimmy Carter. But Zbig [Zbiigniew Brzezinski] has been so marginalized that even the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies refused to give him a real professorship. So he haunts the corridors of power and whatever television shows will have him."

Easter and Immigration

Immigration is one of those issues that easily generates moral confusion.  Almost everyone can be accused of bad motives.  Opponents are racists.  Proponnents want to exploit cheap labor.  It seems uncharitable to deny the poor a chance to come here and achieve a better life, but what if they bring their poverty with them, and depress the wages of the most vulnerable of workers here?

Easter is a good time to reflect on charity and sacrifice.  But knowing what we ought to want doesn't necessarily tell us what we ought to do.  What is the actual effect of immigration on American workers?
The Wall Street Journal cites a study that is very interesting.

A common assumption of immigration critics is that alien workers are either stealing American jobs or reducing home-grown wages. But both notions are flawed, according to a new and illuminating study by economist Giovanni Peri for the Public Policy Institute of California.

Using Census data, Mr. Peri analyzed the effects of immigrant labor on California, home to some 30% of all foreign-born workers in the U.S. The University of California at Davis economist found "no evidence that the inflow of immigrants over the period 1960-2004 worsened the employment opportunities of natives with similar education and experience." As to wages, Mr. Peri found that, "during 1990-2004, immigration induced a 4 percent real wage increase for the average native worker. This effect ranged from near zero (+0.2%) for wages of native high school dropouts and between 3 and 7 percent for native workers with at least a high school diploma."

This means immigrants not only aren't "stealing" jobs; they're helping to boost the pay of native U.S. workers. 

Now I have argued the opposite myself, under the suspcious influence of Mickey Kaus.  It stands to reason that immigrants willing to work for less than American workers will depress wages; its straight forward supply and demand.  But that would only be true if they were competing for the same jobs.  It turns out that they aren't.  Besides, more people means more work overall, and more demand for goods and services.

"In nontechnical terms," writes Mr. Peri, "the wages of native workers could increase because the increased supply of migrants is likely to put native workers in jobs where they perform supervisory, managerial, training, and in general interactive and coordinating tasks, which makes them more productive." More workers also mean more consumption, so "immigration might simply increase total production and demand without depressing wages."

Pellucid Pelosi

Adding to the list of mainstream, liberal papers whose editorial boards have blasted Ms. Pelosi, the Chicago Tribune weighs in:

   Pelosi went to Syria partly to make a point to the Bush administration: You have to talk to your enemies. That echoes the Iraq Study Group report. But as Pelosi learned, when you talk in the Middle East,  you'd better know what you're talking about.

Happy Easter!