Month: December 2008

Rolling Back Cheney

by Chris Bodenner
Democrats are moving to bar the next vice president from attending Senate caucus meetings. Biden spokesperson: "Vice President-elect Biden had no intention of continuing the practice started by Vice President Cheney of regularly attending internal legislative branch meetings — he firmly believes in restoring the Office of the Vice President to its historical role."

Making The Military Brass Lean Left?

By Patrick Appel
Hilzoy wonders how Obama will change the composition of the military:

Obama’s choices to date…raise the serious possibility that he could end (or at least mitigate) the Republican tilt of the senior officer corps. They have already experienced life under George W. Bush, and by all accounts, they did not care for it. But their distrust of Democrats might easily have prevented them from seriously considering drawing the obvious conclusion from Bush and Rumsfeld’s trashing of the armed forces. If Obama can get past that hurdle, he could, just possibly, cause a very significant change.

I don’t expect that the senior officer corps would go Democratic the way they are now Republican, nor, frankly, would I really want them to. I think that it’s bad for the senior officer corps to be overwhelmingly aligned with either party. I would just like the two parties to be on a level playing field, as far as the officer corps goes. Obama might actually achieve that. And that would be a very big deal.

The GOP Ushers In Some Change Of Its Own, Ctd.

by Chris Bodenner
A reader at The Volokh Conspiracy writes:

The really remarkable thing about Cao’s election is that it took place in a majority-black district. Blacks are (I’m writing a paper on this) 174 for 180 in the past 12 years of elections in majority-black congressional districts.

In fact, LA-02 is a whopping 64% African-American (and less than 3% Asian-American)

Continuing The Health Care Debate

By Patrick Appel

A reader writes:

Job lock is one of the under-discussed characteristics of our health care situation in the US. The economy benefits when the mobility of its workers is maximized, when workers can easily shift to positions where they’re needed most. Having my health care tied to my employer and my state is a giant impediment to mobility and entrepreneurship. Of the factors the Kauffmann Foundation recommends for stimulating entrepreneurship, only education reform exceeds health care reform in importance.

No Christianist Here

by Chris Bodenner
Adam Nagourney reports:

Mr. Cao was a refugee from Vietnam at age 8, a former Jesuit seminarian, a philosophy student with a penchant for Camus and Dostoyevsky…. Mr. Cao said that while he was studying to be a priest in the 1990s, he had “the great opportunity to work with the poor in conditions of extreme poverty” in Mexico and in Vietnamese refugee camps in Hong Kong — children playing in the slums, children behind bars. He wanted to be a missionary.

“From there, the desire to bring social reforms, or to promote certain social change,” Mr. Cao said in an interview Sunday at an outdoor cafe in the Uptown neighborhood here. But, he added, “Politics and religious life don’t mix.” … “I don’t want to conform to any ideology, to be put into a little corner,” Mr. Cao said.

The GOP Ushers In Some Change Of Its Own

by Chris Bodenner
Two years after electing Bobby Jindal, the country’s first Indian-American governor, Louisiana elects Joe Cao, the country’s first Vietnamese-American congressman. In a heavily Democratic, black district that encompasses nearly all of New Orleans, Cao upset Rep. Bill Jefferson (D), the 9-term congressman currently under indictment for bribery.

The Next Afghanistan?

By Patrick Appel
Aidan Hartley reports on Somalia:

Al Shabaab militants who have seized much of southern Somalia are now on the brink of overwhelming Mogadishu. Ethiopian forces are edging toward withdrawal, together with a beleaguered force of African peacekeepers. If the jihadi militants succeed in Mogadishu, it will be the first time an al-Qaeda ally has controlled a country since the Taliban in Afghanistan before 2001. This time, their foreign agenda could be both more organized and more aggressive against the outside world. More moderate factions among Islamists and in President Abdullahi Yusuf’s government could still reach a compromise—excluding both al-Qaeda cohorts and Western-backed gangsters. Negotiations between the moderates are ongoing.

Will The Kindle Help Save Newspapers?, Ctd.

By Patrick Appel
Maybe not. A reader writes:

I happen to work at a "major metro daily" on the West Coast and just received a report including the revenue from the Kindle feed. We get 30% of the $5.99 a month Amazon charges. I did not negotiate this deal! The paper’s take this month: $1044.00 from 580 subscriptions.

“Fifty Years Of Popular Songs Condensed Into Single Sentences”

by Chris Bodenner
Marc Haynes lists them:

The Beatles, "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
I want to do it with you.
…
James Blunt, "You’re Beautiful"
I want to do it with you.
…
Elvis Presley, "Jailhouse Rock"
Incarcerated men will on occasion do it with each other.
…
Bob Dylan, "Blowin’ in the Wind"
The Man is currently doing it to you.